NXT 451: We're Not Gonna Take It, Nikki Cross, NXT's Twisted Sister Will!

Huzzah! Another week of NXT shenanigans covered by your favorite Brothers of Discussion!  Let’s dig right into the Dream matches and Lunacy that was…

5/30/18

By Michael Klink

@michael_klink

5) The first honor of this week goes to the jobbers who make our heroes look good.  EC3 battled Fabian Aichner, who’s had a few televised matches in the past and this week proved his mettle by standing toe to toe with a foe in the top 1%.  He didn’t get a ton of chances to display his offense, but his top rope cross body onto EC3 on the floor below drew audible gasps from the NXT faithful (and caused me to spit up some blackberry ginger ale).  Sometimes WWE cameramen are working their magic, and sometimes it’s raw ability.  In this case, chalk it up to Aichner being a future fixture on the program.

Chris Dijak also got a turn building up a big money hero when he clashed with Ricochet.  Ricochet is the bigger star (and we’ll talk more on him in a moment) but again, a jobber made good use of his TV time.  Dijak fluidly went back to back to back with a suicina reversal into a ring apron chokeslam, transitioned into a springboard elbow drop, and ultimately swung the match with a high risk moonsault attempt that missed.  Ricochet won in short fashion, but it was only because his repertoire was that much more impressive.

Dakota Kai gets slotted into this spot as well because she more or less got squashed by NXT women’s champion Shayna Baszler.  Dakota got a few good kicks in towards the end of the bout, but this was all about Kai making Baszler look like a monster.  There are anguished expressions, and then there are the tortured shrieks that Kai is capable of.  Baszler owes Kai a cut from her next paycheck.

4) Bianca Belair’s backstory was a real treat for anyone else ready to take women’s wrestling more seriously.  We don’t usually get a ton of back story on our characters but this montage/interview excelled at showcasing Belair as a motivated and ambitious superstar.  We weren’t just told that she was a multi-sport athlete; we were shown a video package of her high school, college, and post-collegiate accolades, culminating in her obsession with Cross Fit body building.  We learned that she wants to meet the standards set by her relatives and that a normal life was doable but not desired.  She hasn’t toiled away on the indie scene; she’s been making her mark exclusively through WWE’s performance center.  Her physique is top notch, she’s got a great look with the yardstick braid, and her power moves are all go, no show.  If her progress thus far is any indication, she’ll be a household name before many of her male counterparts.

3) Lars Sullivan’s got the “look” of a wrestling monster for sure.  His thighs resemble aged sequoias, his chest hair count is in the 1000’s, and his Shrek-like skull would make any man wet his trousers.  What we haven’t seen, up until now, was the man’s speed.  Lars’ power game was never in question, but his reversal of NXT Champion Aleister Black’s Black Mass spinning heel kick was truly impressive. 

2) Ricochet, that new 195lb superstar on the NXT roster, deadlifted a 265lb man and suplexed him.  A man who’d be in the bantam weight for 205 Live did that in front of a live studio audience.   Let that marinate for a few minutes because I’m still trying to fathom how (apologies to Neville) the basic rules of physics kissed Ricochet bye bye a long time ago.  Speaking of kissing, if his feud with Velveteen Dream doesn’t climax in a locking of the lips, I’ll eat my hat.

1) Nikki Cross, Scotland’s favorite Twisted Sister, made her triumphant return to Full Sail University by rescuing her new protégé Dakota Kai, scaring Shayna Baszler out of the ring, ambushing Baszler, stealing Baszler’s belt, using that belt as Baszler bait, booking herself in a Women’s Championship Match, booking her protégé as the referee in said match, and then pinning Baszler in a stunning twist that saw Cross get her first taste of gold!  NXT is known for its slow burn story telling but this was a Season 6 Episode of “Game of Thrones”.

 I’ve been begging for Cross to get on that title scene for ages, and I cannot picture a more fitting championship route for Cross than what happened tonight. In the lexicon of women’s wrestlers, there’s a finite amount of tropes the characters are unfortunately limited to: the conquering hero, the “mean girl”, the monster, or the dancer.  Cross wins my wrestling heart because she’s somehow eluded all those common archetypes and ventured into territory we haven’t broached since Luna Vachon was managing Golddust.  Cross has a psychotic energy about her, bouncing and caroming like a hungry bat in mosquito season.  Her look is wild eyed and daring, like she’s piloting a Mad Max motorcycle over a pit of Star Wars sarlacc pits.  I’m really excited for this new angle and look forward to as much Nikki Cross as my humble TV can handle.

Now that we’ve got the Cream of the Crop of the way, it’s always fun to see the Raisins in the Bran:

3)  Gargano interrupting EC3 was weird. The interaction probably sets up Johnny’s next feud after the Ciampa storyline is resolved, but it wasn’t a very “face-y” thing to do. Also, after his tirade, Mr. Wrestling dropped his Ciampa fight contract off at the announcer’s table. Is Mauro the de facto general manager in William Regal’s absence? Mama Mia, that wouldn’t be a bad way to go.  But it also means we’re six degrees of separation from seeing Johnathan Coachman as the Raw GM.  That’ll give you chills the Undertaker never could.

2) Hanson of the War Raiders making the cartwheel a weekly spot..  The Hanson slot is mostly due to my bias for Heavy Machinery, but darn it, Dozovic is big too and his Caterpillar dance is at least 6x more entertaining than a cartwheel. 

1) I loved the Nikki Cross storyline tonight and the relatively quick build for the upcoming tag team title feuds and Dream and Ricochet encounters.  But this feels like the 3rd or 4th Takeover event in a row where the NXT Championship feud is created 2 weeks before the event.  With the roster being so talented and NXT only running for 60 minutes a week (45 after commercials), it stands to reason that there wouldn’t be an infinite amount of time for every story to be fleshed out.  I guess the major beef with this makeshift angle is that it diminishes the value of the NXT title.  With the lack of build, it makes the inevitability of Black’s victory obvious.  The audience has little time to  consider Lars a threat or rival to Black, so the wrestlers will have to work twice as hard to give us that feeling of doubt in the outcome.  It’s unfortunate for Black, and hopefully his next feud will have more time to bloom.

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