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Make sure to check out the new voice of NXT audios, David Jakielo for his thoughts on the show. His audio for this week’s show can be found here.
Here are my current rankings for the rookies based on their performance with their prior rankings in parenthesis (after week one/preseason).
8th Place: Titus O’Neil (8th/6th)
Wrestling: O’Neil did not wrestle this week.
(Record 0-1 with Zack Ryder lost to Eli Cottonwood and John Morrison)
Promos: While O’Neil did not have a promo in the ring, he did have a backstage segment with his pro Zack Ryder where they tried to clear the air over the issues that they appeared to have last week, even before the welcome to NXT rookie beat down. With O’Neil on the same page as his pro should help, though he might do best if they are trying to get a date with the ring announcer instead of wrestling.
Intangibles: O’Neil did show that he is willing to listen to his pro and that should help him. O’Neil was too far behind Harris to pull ahead of him this week.
7th Place: Husky Harris (7th/7th)
Wrestling: Harris did not wrestle this week.
(Record 0-1 with Cody Rhodes lost to Percy Watson and Montel Vontavious Porter)
Promos: We got the Husky Harris video package this week with a look at his life prior to joining the WWE and his heritage in the wrestling industry. We found out that he has always wanted to be a wrestler. I don’t know if it is good to call your style ‘unorthodox’ when you have a lineage and look like he possesses.
Intangibles: Outside of the video package, Harris was virtually invisible since he did not say anything during the opening segment when he was in the ring. Harris had a good week when you consider how little he was on the show.
6th Place: Eli Cottonwood (6th/5th)
Wrestling: Since Eli wrestled last week, he got this week off.
(Record 1-0 with John Morrison defeated Titus O’Neil and Zack Ryder)
Promos: We saw the behind the scenes video package for Eli and we learned about what makes Eli tick. He definitely has an athletic background with his basketball career. With the video package, it felt like he was trying to come off as someone who wanted more contact than what you get on the basketball court. While he comes off as someone who is looking for a confrontation, his gimmick comes off as too aloof unless they are trying to give him the psycho giant gimmick.
Intangibles: Cottonwood’s video package helped him this week, but we didn’t see anything else from him on the show. We need to see which way he goes in the next few weeks.
5th Place: Lucky Cannon (5th/8th)
Wrestling: Lucky got his first chance to wrestle on this week’s show and he was on the losing end with his pro against Kofi and McGillicutty. Lucky showed some basic skills in the ring, but did not really do too much to showcase his talent. Without showing improvement in future matches, Lucky might not be too long for this competition.
(Record 0-1: With Mark Henry lost to Kofi Kingston and Michael McGillicutty)
Promos: We did not get any comments from Lucky during the show.
Intangibles: Cannon did not impress one of the pros and he was called out by Cody Rhodes for showing sportsmanship after losing his match. Next week, we will see if Cannon is able to defeat a pro and get a major boost.
4th Place: Percy Watson (1st/4th)
Wrestling: Watson did not wrestle on this week’s show since he was in a match on last week’s show.
(Record 1-0: with Montel Vontavious Porter defeated Cody Rhodes and Husky Harris)
Promos:: In addition to not being in a match, we did not hear from Watson either in a promo during the show or in a profile
Intangibles: The only time that we saw Percy on tonight’s show was in the opening segment when all of the rookies were brought to the ring to be told why they were attacked last week. Since Watson was virtually invisible on this week’s show, it is impossible for him to stay on top. Because the rookies between second and fourth places either got wins or looked impressive in the ring, Watson fell this far.
3rd Place: Michael McGillicutty (4th/2nd)
Wrestling: Michael got his first win on NXT this week in a pro/rookie tag match with his pro Kofi Kingston against Mark Henry and Lucky Cannon. Michael was the second best rookie in the ring this week and showed a lot of the potential that I saw from him in FCW before he suffered injuries. Michael looked good in the ring against larger opponents. He looked good in the ring against Henry and he outwrestled Cannon. I was surprised that since they focused on how he is related to Curt and Larry Hennig that he did not continue to use the Perfectplex or even the Axe to maintain the family legacy. At least he throws drop kicks like his father and I am waiting for them to allow him to hit the hurdle leap frog followed by a drop kick as he comes off the ropes. He worked very well with Kofi in the tag match (and he was an FCW Tag Champion on a number of occasions, including recently with Brett DiBiase). His new finisher looks like a swinging Diamond Cutter or a more forceful Twist of Fate. If he continues to work like this, I see him moving ahead of Riley and challenging Kaval for first place.
(Record 1-0: With Kofi Kingston defeated Lucky Cannon and Mark Henry)
Promos: We got the video package from Michael last week and this week he did not say anything.
Intangibles: At least we found the reason for the use of the name McGillicutty (and fto that explains why he isn’t wrestling as Joe Hennig, but why wait until the second week? Michael got a lot of praise from his pro so it looks like he is following Kofi’s guidance.
2nd Place: Alex Riley (3rd/3rd)
Wrestling: Alex Riley got to wrestle and he had the advantage of facing the best wrestler in the rookie class and getting a victory. Even though Kaval outwrestled him, there are enough wrestlers on Raw and Smackdown who can tell him that it doesn’t matter if you outwrestle someone, it only matters if you get your hand raised at the end of the night. Riley is one of the better rookies in this class but he was slightly exposed against a better opponent.
(Record 1-0: Defeated Kaval)
Promos: Alex Riley got to talk after his match with Kaval and he talked about how he would rather appear on NXT than party with his mentor. It was a decent promo from Riley. While Riley’s character is about getting things handed to him, he did come off as someone who is serious about the competition. I liked that he did not come off as cocky as he did last week
Intangibles: I guess Alex Riley took some medication since last week because he was no longer allergic to Matt Striker like he was last week. Riley showed a lot of maturity this week and I wonder if it was a result of last week’s beat down or the absence of his pro. Riley would probably have moved into first place if Kaval did not have the week that he did.
1st Place: Kaval (2nd/1st)
Wrestling: Kaval was in the opening match on this week’s show against Alex Riley and he showed that he is going to be taking the Daniel Bryan role on this season of NXT. Kaval is the most technically sound wrestler among the rookies and most of the pros as well. Kaval did not wrestle like a ‘rookie’ in his match and he did a lot of things that he has shown in his work in Ring of Honor, TNA, and for independent companies. Kaval’s only mistake was missing the Warrior’s Way and that gave Alex Riley the brief window to get the win. This is not the area where Kaval is going to have a problem and he was in the ring with one of the better rookies. He did what a top wrestler should do and he elevated his opponent even if Riley did not do a lot during the match.
(Record 0-1: Lost to Alex Riley)
Promos: Kaval did not cut a promo on tonight’s show but we did get the Kaval video package and we got a little insight into why Kaval is such a serious person in the ring. He acknowledged that he has been wrestling for more than a decade so that allows the fans who might not know what he has done in other companies equate him with Daniel Bryan from season one as someone who can wrestle. Kaval also talked about how he is not going to be intimidated by larger opponents in the ring.
Intangibles: I am going to put the over/under at Week 7 for when Kaval accepts the Michelle/Layla make over or chokes them both out with a Dragon Sleeper. It seems like Michelle and Layla have no idea what they are dealing with when it comes to their rookie and Kaval is showing that he is trying to work with them and learn the WWE way. Kaval only had one person to pass to move into first and when the person in first is on for a few minutes more than the Miz who was not even in Raleigh for the show, there was no doubt that he was going to move into first unless someone else had the night of their lives.
Other thoughts on the show:
The show should be about the rookies, but there are too many times when it seems like they are secondary or tertiary for a segment. I thought they waited too long to have a pro explain their actions last week.
With the pros who were there, I thought Montel Vontavious Porter was the best choice to explain why they gave the rookies their initiation last week. In my thoughts column last week, I thought it was more of an initiation than a message to the rookies not to try what their predecessors did on Raw. I liked the way that Porter said that they are here to help the rookies (even though we rarely see them working together outside of tag matches).
While you have Porter saying that they are here to help the rookies, you have situations like Zack Ryder trying to hit on the ring announcer instead of talking about the match he just watched or John Morrison trying to talk about why Miz was not at the show this week.
I thought Layla and Michelle were okay on commentary during the match involving their rookie.
I thought the top pro on this week’s show was Cody Rhodes (and not for the reason that regular readers of my reports would think). He provided criticism of the tag match and his comments set up the match for next week. It also develops a feud between Mark Henry and Cody Rhodes during this show since they are on different brands. If only Cody had uttered his father’s famous ‘pay window’ (pay winda for those with Dusty Captioning) phrase when talking about how the winners get paid more than the losers.
I don’t know why they had to have Matt Striker run up the ramp to get Cody’s response to the challenge made by Mark Henry. Couldn’t they have used Todd Grisham to be a second interviewer or remember that Cody had a microphone?
I did like the GTV segment in the locker room with Titus O’Neil and Zack Ryder. It showed Zack without all of the flourish that sometimes takes away from his work. It also provided a candid moment for the rookies and pros and is something that I hope they do more of in the future.
What to watch on DVR: The two matches; MVP’s promo at the start of the show; Cody Rhodes comments at the end of the show (and the other stuff that Cody does)
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