NXTweet 09.10.14

Around the halfway point of this episode I realised I was watching a below average NXT episode. There’s a tweet about it here. It has to happen sometimes. I can live with it. It remains WWE’s best weekly show by a significant margin. And that’s with Titus O’Neil in the main event!

Tyler Breeze v Mojo Rawley

Tweet 1: Let's Tweet some NX.

Tweet 2: Why has Breeze been dropped to the opening half of the show over the last month? Bad move, WWE.
Tweet 3: No, no, it's Mojo.
Tweet 4: Mojo looks like a Power Planet dude.


Tyler Breeze is not hyped for this treatment.

Tweet 5: How many times is Mojo going to get jobbed out before he gets put in a tag team with CJ Parker?
Tweet 6: They could be called The Guys The Audience Hates.

Enzo Amore, Big Cass, Carmella and William Regal at the Performance Centre

Tweet 7: Highlight of that Enzo and Cass video was two dudes chilling in a ring watching the filming.

Recap of the problems (or, if you prefer, the ongoing crisis) between Hideo Itami and The Ascension

Tweet 8: "Let's look now at the ongoing crisis between Hideo Itami and The Ascension." Ongoing crisis? Lolwut?

Tweet 9: Funaki's pep talk though...

Viktor v Hideo Itami

Tweet 10: They must be building up to Itami v Konor O'Konorson.

Tweet 11: "This man is the biggest star in Japan today" - Tensai McTensai on Hideo Itami
Tweet 12: Itami is not the biggest star in Japan. For one thing he's not even in Japan. Get your act together, Tensai.
Tweet 13: Why are the commentary team drawing attention to how quiet the crowd is? It's not a good thing.
Tweet 14: The audience just want to see Itami kick Viktor for a few minutes then pin him. Viktor offence is not required. But it's happening.

More of this next time, yeah?

Tweet 15: Konor roughing up Funaki? Is that the best they've got for the introductory storyline of KENTA?
Tweet 16: I mean, I'm all for Funaki being on TV but it's not helping Itami at all.
Tweet 17: Itami would look like a beast if he quickly beat Viktor one week and Konor the next, and fended the pair off every time they attacked him.
Tweet 18: "Look at Funaki, his tie's all over the place!" - Rich Brennan

The Vaudevillains v Enzo Amore and Big Cass

Tweet 19: #Vaudevillainspop

Tweet 20: This new music is more awful than it was last week.
Tweet 21: Big Cass referencing Hey, Arnold! there. Highlight of the show so far.
Tweet 22: I enjoyed that match but it didn't really last long enough. They could have been great with ten minutes.

That's a wrap, folks.

Becky Lynch v Sasha Banks

Tweet 23: Surprisingly enthusiastic response for Becky Lynch there.

Tweet 24: I've come to terms with this episode being below average. It has to happen sometimes.
Tweet 25: Lynch needs to go all Chris Daniels and get some flared tights.
Tweet 26: Is there a reason for all these kick outs at one?

Becky's tights are not good.

Tweet 27: That backstabber into a crossface is still beautiful.
Tweet 28: Sasha's good. She should be on in matches more often.

Titus O’Neil v Sami Zayn

Tweet 29: If Titus was coming into NXT as a new face he'd make a great monster. His history, and the Bunny feud, means it can't work now.

Tweet 30: I think Titus has a picture of himself on his trunks.
Tweet 31: Jason Albert saying he was in a match against Titus once. I bet that was a classic.
Tweet 32: "Are you okay?!" - Some woman in the crowd to Sami Zayn after he'd been chucked out of the ring
Tweet 33: Rich Brennan calling a bear hug a bear hold there.
Tweet 34: Titus is wearing a friendship bangle.

Kung Fu Titus.

Tweet 35: I wouldn't be surprised if this were Titus's longest match this year.
Tweet 36: Well there we are. Titus O'Neil defeated Sami Zayn. That'll send the crowd home happy.
Tweet 37: Why did nobody mention that Titus won with Clash of the Titus? It's a great name.
Tweet 38: Neville saved Zayn from a Titus top rope attack. I bet he was planning a 450.

NXTweet 02.10.14

Two title matches that both mean something on a one hour wrestling show? It could only be NXT. Or Ring of Honor, obvs.

Women’s championship: Bayley v Charlotte

Tweet 1: It's NXTime.

Tweet 2: Starting with a championship match, eh? Bold move, WWE. Bold move.
Tweet 3: Not thirty seconds in and Alex Riley and Tensai Tensaison are arguing. I can't stand A-Ry on commentary. Why does he have a job?
Tweet 4: In-ring introductions. #bigtime
Tweet 5: Charlotte's from The Queen City. Is that anywhere near Dudleyville?
Tweet 6: A-Ry just said there's a big X up in the air. There's an Ultimate X match here...?
Tweet 7: Who is Alex Riley to talk about veteran moves?
Tweet 8: They're having a good match, for the record.
Tweet 9: Inappropriately placed ad breaks are inappropriate.
Tweet 10: Trad figure four from Charlotte. I prefer her figure four headlock. Plus, in wrestle-logic terms, it's harder to counter.

Woooooo!

Tweet 11: I did enjoy that handstand leverage from Charlotte though.
Tweet 12: Charlotte's neck breaker finisher is Natural Selection. Isn't that like the third name that thing's had?
Tweet 13: Post-match hug. I like the Charlotte character more every week. I don't think it's possible to like Bayley more.

The Ascension beat up Hideo Itami, thus cancelling the scheduled Viktor v Itami match

Tweet 14: When The Ascension had the tag titles we never saw them. Now they're on every week.

Tweet 15: I love the way the referees are perfectly lined up. They should have done it by height or something.

Ineffectual referees not actually getting between The Ascension and Itami there.

Tweet 16: "This right here was total annihilation" - Jason Albert on The Ascension duffing up Hideo Itami (because that's their finisher name!)
Tweet 17: "Uncalled for is the word that comes to mind" - Jason Albert
Tweet 18: I really miss Regal doing commentary.

Enzo Amore locks up a time or two with Carmella as Big Cass watches on

Tweet 19: They're showing Enzo teaching someone how to wrestle? This is exposing The Business! UNACCEPTABLE!!

Tweet 20: Oh noes! Carmella got the better of Enzo again! How humiliating, etc...

Troy McClane v Darin Corbin

Tweet 21: Pretty sure someone was holding a sign that said Brain Corbin.

Tweet 22: Troy McClane is a jobber but Christ that's a great name.
Tweet 23: I'm yet to see the appeal of Corbin. Decent enough look but nothing amazing. Can't judge his wrestling until he has longer matches.

The Vaudevillains v Jason Jordan and Tye Dillinger

Tweet 24: #Vaudevillainspop

Tweet 25: Their old music was way better. Was it changed because the audience liked it too much?
Tweet 26: Jordan and Dillinger should call themselves The New Team Angle.
Tweet 27: The Vaudevillains are clearly intended to be heels but they're just as clearly more likable than Benjamin and Haas 2.0.
Tweet 28: Gotch and English are playing to the crowd so maybe they're faces after all.
Tweet 29: This match is confusing.
Tweet 30: Dillinger slipped his knee pad down. My word what a heelish thing to do!
Tweet 31: Gotch is lucky he's not prone to botching because there'd be a very obvious nickname waiting for him.
Tweet 32: Please tell me English's senton is called That's a Wrap. Marvellous.

NXT's most manly tag team.

Titus O’Neil arrives and sits in the front row

Tweet 33: Titus O'Neil rocking up and sitting in the front row next to some dude wearing a bow tie there.

Hideo Itami is looked at by a doctor than chats to Sho Funaki

Tweet 34: Loving this Funaki cameo. He just happened to be passing through wearing a WWE branded anorak.

NXT championship: Tyson Kidd v Adrian Neville

Tweet 35: Titus gets to his feet and claps Tyson Kidd. Kidd blanks him.

Tweet 36: Weird little orc dance from Neville there.
Tweet 37: Titus gave him a thumbs up. Love that.
Tweet 38: Nev looked a bit disappointed by the boos. Bad luck, guy. They're yours now.
Tweet 39: I wonder if Kidd regrets not having a lengthy indy stint. He'd probably have gotten a regular Dragon Gate gig.
Tweet 40: If he was available now Quildan would definitely be snapping him up for RPW.
Tweet 41: Sometimes I wonder if Quildan really is the RPW booker. He might just be a (metaphorical, obvs) puppet used to take the heat.
Tweet 42: Mid-match don't try this at home thing where we're told WWE stars aren't invincible. Ambrose survived having his head crushed by concrete.
Tweet 43: Nice reversal from Neville off that sunset flip.
Tweet 44: "What a kick out by Tyson Kidd! Kicked out on pure instinct!" - Alex Riley with the blandest wrestling commentary I've ever heard
Tweet 45: Kidd puts on the Sharpshooter. Neville gets the ropes. I hate how often big submission moves are survived in that fashion.
Tweet 46: The move should be presented as so painful that the guy has to tap unless he can reach the ropes within a couple of seconds.

Too many people survive this these days. It does the move's image no good.

Tweet 47: Titus interferes. Zayn makes the save. The crowd are into Zayn more than anyone else.
Tweet 48: One day Sami Zayn will turn heel and in doing so will break my heart. He's so darn likable.
Tweet 49: Don't worry everyone! Adrian Neville retained with his fancy top rope finisher.
Tweet 50: Referee having to remind Neville to do the staredown with Zayn there.
Tweet 51: "Tyson Kidd has no more NXT championship opportunities." Said as Kidd sat slumped in the corner of the ring with his head in his hands.
Tweet 52: Go on, NXT! Kick 'im while he's down!

Missed Opportunity: The WWF Light Heavyweight Division

Anyone watching WWF programming during the Attitude Era may have a few hazy memories of the light heavyweight championship. Christian winning it in his debut match, perhaps. Or Gillberg’s 453 day reign. Maybe even a particularly enjoyable match between Dean Malenko and Scotty 2 Hotty at Backlash 2000.

The chances are that anyone who does remember the light heavyweight championship won’t remember much more than that because it wasn’t a title that was really featured too often. It was seen very rarely after 1998. Pay-per-view appearances for the championship were practically non-existent once 1999 hit. For that matter they weren’t all that common before then.

Some may wonder why the company had a light heavyweight championship in the first place. It’s a well-known fact that the Fed was the home of the big men, with Vince McMahon having little time for smaller guys. The answer’s obvious though. The light heavyweight title was introduced to combat the cruiserweights on the other channel.

World Championship Wrestling had had a great deal of success with its cruiserweight division. They’d discovered that the smaller guys put on great matches that excited viewers, the ideal thing for an opening match, and that they didn’t need an abundance of storyline. Two guys could just be put into the ring, leaving the booking team more time to focus on writing for the more important (read “higher paid”)guys like the nWo and Goldberg.

The WWF put on a light heavyweight tournament, crowned a champion, and booked a few defences on RAW and pay-per-view. When they didn’t see ratings spike in these light heavyweight segments they took it as a sign that their fans weren’t interested in smaller guys having high quality matches and demoted the championship. Within a year of its official debut as a title (it had been floating around Japan and Mexico for sixteen years prior to the crowning of the first in-house champ) it was practically meaningless. It would enjoy a brief resurgence in the first half of 2000 when Malenko joined the promotion but it wouldn’t last. The WWF light heavyweight championship was ultimately always destined for oblivion.

This needn’t have been the case. Had a greater effort been put into the light heavyweight division in the summer of 1998 it could have been established as a highlight of the period along with Austin, DX, Mick Foley, The Rock, and a heavy-on-storylines mid-card.

There are six combinations for singles matches amongst these four guys alone.
And that's discounting Yamaguchi-San.

The company had the talent, it was just a matter of utilising it. In June of 1998, around the time the company seemed to decide the light heavyweight division was a waste of time, Kaientai were at full strength. That’s Taka Michinoku, Sho Funaki, Men's Teioh and Dick Togo, four guys who could have had great singles matches with one another had they just been split up. A number of Mexican wrestlers were being used on an infrequent basis. Aguila, who would later be signed and win the championship as Essa Rios, had challenged for the gold at WrestleMania XIV. Pantera had done the same the month before, at the amusingly named No Way Out of Texas pay-per-view. Super Crazy, as Super Loco, had wrestled a single tournament match the previous November and would appear again later in 1998.

Also affiliated with the company at this point were the Hardy brothers. In the summer of ’98 the Hardys were still a year away from becoming TV regulars with full contracts but they’d been working as enhancement talent for years. Both were good enough to work in low-card matches where the focus was on match quality as opposed to promos and storylines. They’d have been an ideal fit for the light heavyweight division. Well, Jeff would have been. Matt wouldn’t have been ideal, but he’d have been a solid addition.

Under contract at this point were Scott Taylor and Brian Christopher. They’d been put together as a team earlier in the year (peculiarly, they had debuted as a pairing at WrestleMania XIV) but they were still a while off of becoming Too Cool. They were well placed to work as the lead heels of a light heavyweight division. Christopher, being thicker than most of the men mentioned here, would have been a good fit as the bruiser of the division.

They had Sean ‘X Pac’ Waltman too, of course. He would go on to hold the light heavyweight championship in 2001 but was nowhere near it in 1998. I suspect that was because he was presented as a high profile signing and was associated with the ultra-hip, super-cool D-Generation X. It’s likely that the feeling was that the light heavyweight championship was beneath the gang. Plus X Pac was injured for a significant portion of the year and when he was healthy he was competing for the European strap.

Dean Malenko, perhaps  thinking about what could have been.

Splitting Kaientai and signing the guys they were already sporadically using would have provided a solid roster. Granting the guys one match a week on RAW would have been enough exposure for the division to be taken seriously and would have provided ideal opening match material. Carrying the approach over into 1999 and signing one or two new names would have kept things fresh and the division alive for the signing of Dean Malenko and Eddie Guerrero in January 2000.

The division would not have lasted long term, of course. The average size of WWE wrestlers has significantly reduced since the Attitude Era came to a close. The light heavyweight scene would have been faded out as this become more apparent. WWE wouldn’t have wanted guys going from the light heavyweight championship to the WWE championship because it would have highlighted the shift away from larger guys.

But they could have gotten far more mileage out of the concept than they did. It’s depressing to think how close the WWF came to having a really good light heavyweight division. Just a bit of effort would have allowed them to play WCW at their own game. But it wasn’t to be. It’s just one of many things on the long list of WWF and WWE missed opportunities.