Some are insisting it’s a work, but if so, that is Vince Russo-level bad booking. Maybe even worse.
I’m sure Impact’s creative will spin it as a work, and tag it with “You never know what craziness we’ll have in the Impact Zone!”
It still smacks of Sid Vicious kicking out of Hulk Hogan’s Big Boot of Doom, then leaving the ring to get counted out. He had a crap career after that.
Maybe Austin will try to worm in on RoH as he leaves the Impact bridge in flames.
At the risk of sounding markish, SD 1K was actually a pretty good show. Some segments got culled/shortened, like Rusev vs Miz and the GMs of SD past. Others were surprises, like CeSeamo winning the tag belts with help from da Big Show. Daniel Bryan seems to have cemented his place as “so over, he can lose and it won’t matter” status. I bet Curt Hawkins gets his first win over Daniel.
I was skeptical about Batista potentially returning to WWE, but he killed it during his promo for the Evolution (not to be confused with the women’s PPV) segment.
I hope Rey Rey and Nakamura maintain a feud. They worked a terrific match together.
Agreed KO. I’m wondering where they are going with Big Show though. Seems rushed to have him heel The New Day 1 week after jobbing to Orton. Seems Miz is always getting his segments shortened. Did you notice that neither got entrances on TV? Definitely time issues.
Austin Aries was not present for the two days of TV tapings, so he’ll be off the show for a while. Read into that what you will. Inside word was that there were significant re-writes because of that. Watching the replay confirmed what I thought - Johnny Impact, who is not a good actor, seemed genuinely surprised, and Kross/Moose seemed legitimately caught off-guard.
I think Big Show has the record for most turns.
Since ND are good guys forever, they don’t use their 3rd member to cheat. It always annoyed me when 2 heels were able to lay out 3 NDs, especially with a hoss like Big E on their side. Now, the Bigs E and Show can have a side feud reminiscent of Show vs Lesnar.
As Show’s swan song? He’s GOT to be getting close to retirement at this point.
She also just signed a contract with WWE in the performance center.
Good for Jade/Mia Yim too. She’s been the MVP of both Mae Youn Classics (IMO) and deserves to be there.
No idea who any of the other people are though.
The guy in the back right is Punishment Martinez from RoH. He’s pretty good, kind of an Undertaker lite. He was probably RoH’s tallest guy, but the dude (Jordan Omogbehin, soon to be OMGbehin) next to him makes him look small.
The guy on the lower left is Daniel Vidot, Samoan rugby player. He’s got similar tattoos to The Rock. Do an image search for him and you’ll see he likes to dress up as cyborg warrior types. He’s at least got the visual aptitude for wrestling.
The lower right is Matt Riddle, former MMA competitor (because he got kicked out for smoking pot). He’s been big on the Indie scene and wrestles barefoot. He could be the next Rob Van Damm.
Awesome! Thanks for all that. A facebook group I’m a part of always freaks out when the Indy people come into NXT, but I get just as excited to see them for the first time.
And now we say goodbye to Dirty Dick Slater, at age 67. He didn’t spend much time here in the North East/New York City area, so I mostly saw him on TBS’ Georgia Championship Wrestling - and never any big matches. Still, I always knew of him and his feuds.
Heh… I bet those same people pull for Cesaro, KO, Daniel Bryan, Samoa Joe, and AJ Styles, all RoH alumni. Lio Rush vaulted to the top a lot faster than I expected. He used to be a jobber in RoH and didn’t do much in the way of promos. Now he’s pulling double duty in WWE. Cedric “the Entertainer” Alexander held the CW belt.
Undisputed Era pretty much run NXT, and they’re all transplants from RoH. So are the War Raiders, Tommaso Ciampa, Deonna Perazzo, and Nigel McGuinness. The Indies have already taken over!
wow I remember him ……. 67 normally isn’t old these days ……
Now that you mention it, it occurs to me that I’ve seen Lio Rush live four times, once for ROH and three times for DEFY, and he lost all of those matches.
I haven’t watched NXT TV in a while so I could be wrong, but I have yet to see Donnovan Dijak (or whatever they’re calling him nowadays) win.
I’ve only seen him in one match and he lost to Ricochet. The tall guys aren’t making much of a mark.
They had a promo package for Dan Matha a minute ago, then he appeared in a match that Samoa Joe destroyed. He then appeared in the Greatest Royal Rumble Ever for a few eyeblinks, and I haven’t seen him since.
Roman Reigns has leukemia and has surrendered the Universal Championship so he can seek treatment.
I did not see that coming.
I don’t like the way he got pushed as the greatest thing to happen to wrestling since Hulk Hogan, but I feel bad for him and I hope he beats this.
Yeah that was definitely a record scratch moment. You could just tell the crowd didn’t know what to do and couldn’t tell what was real or not.
Not that I thought they’d use cancer as a work, but any doubt I had was erased when Rollins came out crying.
Crazy…
Holy shit. I wanted him to go away but not like this. Best wishes to him.
Are we sure this isn’t a work? I would hope Vince and company wouldn’t stoop that low. If it’s legit here’s wishing Roman the best of luck.
All the charity work they do for cancer victims, plus basic human decency makes me think it’s not a work.