Want more wrestling news, rumors, and results? Be sure to visit PWInsider.com and PWInsiderXtra.com.
The battle royal on this week’s show will not be included in the win-loss record for the rookies.
With Titus O’Neil being eliminated last week, he will have a default eighth place ranking for the rest of the competition.
The Poll Results from NXT (thanks to the pros and the WWE Universe):
1st Place: Kaval
2nd Place: Percy Watson
3rd Place: Michael McGillicutty
4th Place: Alex Riley
5th Place: Lucky Cannon
6th Place: Eli Cottonwood
7th Place: Husky Harris
8th Place: Titus O’Neil [Eliminated]
Here are my current rankings for the rookies based on their performance with their prior rankings in parenthesis (Week 5/Week 4/Week 3/ Week 2/ Week 1/ Preseason). In order to provide you with an idea of how the rookies compare to each other, I will also add another number to the equation and it will be in brackets. This number will show what percentage of the first place rookie the other rookies are rated. If a rookie is eliminated, their number will be zero
8th Place: Titus O’Neil (8th/ 8th/ 8th/ 8th/ 8th/ T6th) [0]
Wrestling: O’Neil did not wrestle because he was eliminated.
(Record 0-3 with Zack Ryder lost to Eli Cottonwood and John Morrison; lost to Michael McGillicutty; with Alex Riley and Eli Cottonwood lost to Kaval, Michael McGillicutty, and Lucky Cannon)
Promos: O’Neil has been eliminated.
Intangibles: There are no intangibles for O’Neil since he was eliminated.
7th Place: Eli Cottonwood (7th/ T5th/ 7th/ 6th /6th /T6th) [20]
Wrestling: Eli got to wrestle in the battle royal, but he did not last too long and the only thing that you can remember him doing was being beaten up by Nexus after his elimination.
(Record 2-1 with John Morrison defeated Titus O’Neil and Zack Ryder; defeated Kaval; with Titus O’Neil and Alex Riley lost to Lucky Cannon, Michael McGillicutty, and Kaval)
Promos: We did not hear anything from Eli this week since the only rookie who got to talk was Percy Watson in his talk show.
Intangibles: Like most of the rookies, this week was a wash because all they did was walk to the ring during the Show Time segment and participate in the battle royal as a secondary character.
6th Place: Husky Harris (7th/ 5th /7th /7th /5th) [40]
Wrestling: Harris was a part of the battle royal this week and he tried to take on the Nexus but was quickly eliminated by them. Because of the focus on Nexus we really did not see much from Husky other than his elimination.
(Record 1-2 with Cody Rhodes lost to Percy Watson and Montel Vontavious Porter; lost to Montel Vontavious Porter; with Cody Rhodes defeated Lucky Cannon and Mark Henry)
Promos: Husky did not say anything this week that was picked up by a microphone.
Intangibles: Harris did not help himself in the rankings, but it was not his fault. While he will not fall below Cottonwood, he loses ground to Lucky Cannon who had the luxury of being in the only non-battle royal match of the night.
5th Place: Lucky Cannon (5th/ T5th/ 6th/ 5th /5th /8th) [50]
Wrestling: Cannon wrestled in both matches tonight and he showed his prowess in giving fireman’s carries to wrestlers. He also showed why he is called Lucky when he went for a pescado and either didn’t realize or didn’t care that Alex Riley was near the ring steps because Cannon missed his target and hit the ring steps. I had seen him do this before on FCW television so maybe it is one of his trademark moves. In the battle royal, Cannon did not do much
(Record 2-3: With Mark Henry lost to Kofi Kingston and Michael McGillicutty; lost to Cody Rhodes; with Michael McGillicutty and Kaval defeated Eli Cottonwood, Titus O’Neil, and Alex Riley; with Mark Henry lost to Cody Rhodes and Husky Harris; with Mark Henry defeated Alex Riley and The Miz)
Promos: Cannon did not get to cut a promo during the show.
Intangibles: Cannon did not show any improvement in the ring and based on the pescado onto the ring steps, it might have hurt him more than help him. However, since he was in the tag match, Cannon got to do more than most of the rookies.
4th Place: Michael McGillicutty (2nd/ 2nd/ 2nd /3rd /4th /2nd) [80]
Wrestling: McGillicutty was in the battle royal and did not really do much to stand out from the other participants.
(Record 4-0: With Kofi Kingston defeated Lucky Cannon and Mark Henry; defeated Titus O’Neil; with Kaval and Lucky Cannon defeated Titus O’Neil, Alex Riley, and Eli Cottonwood; defeated Percy Watson)
Promos: We did not get any promos from McGillicutty this week.
Intangibles: Because of the lack of a promo and limited focus in the battle royal, he lost ground to both Percy Watson and Alex Riley.
3rd Place: Kaval (1st/ 1st/ 1st/ 1st/ 2nd /1st) [85]
Wrestling: Kaval was in the battle royal but was not really the focus during the match.
(Record 1-3: Lost to Alex Riley; Lost to Eli Cottonwood; with Lucky Cannon and Michael McGillicutty defeated Titus O’Neil, Eli Cottonwood, and Alex Riley; lost to Miz)
Promos: Kaval did not get a chance to cut a promo during the show.
Intangibles: Kaval’s run on top ends because of the last of focus given to him while Alex Riley and Percy Watson had strong showings this week. Kaval ends four weeks in a row on top, but with a strong showing next week, he might be able to regain the top spot.
2nd Place: Percy Watson (3rd/ 3rd/ 4th /4th/ 1st /4th) [90]
Wrestling: Watson only got to wrestle in the battle royal and he did not do much. He was eliminated while Nexus was in the ring so he missed the post elimination attack that some had to endure.
(Record 1-2: with Montel Vontavious Porter defeated Cody Rhodes and Husky Harris; with Montel Vontavious Porter lost to Alex Riley and The Miz; lost to Michael McGillicutty)
Promos:: Watson got to host his own talk show based on his victory in the Talk the Talk Challenge. Watson did too much with his gestures instead of focusing on being a host. I thought the interview with Porter was okay, but it was better when Watson explained the rookie’s plan to make an impact by attacking Porter. This segment helped Watson move up the rankings because of the lack of action from Kaval and McGillicutty.
Intangibles: Watson showed a lot of charisma during the Show Time segment and that helped his character’s development. He remains the strongest of the rookies when it comes to promos and the ‘it factor’ this season. He still needs to show what he can do in singles matches in order to make it to number one.
1st Place: Alex Riley (4th/ 4th/3rd /2nd /3rd /3rd) [100]
Wrestling: Riley wrestled twice on this week’s show and he looked okay in the tag match. He was given the task of wrestling Mark Henry for most of the match because Miz did not want to get in the ring with Henry after what he did to Mark on Monday night after Henry was placed in Money in the Bank. Even though Riley took the fall, he had the best in ring performance of the week of any of the rookies. During the battle royal, it looked like Riley was limited because of a few times when he was bleeding during the match and was taken out of the action.
(Record 2-2: Defeated Kaval; with The Miz defeated Percy Watson and Montel Vontavious Porter; with Eli Cottonwood and Titus O’Neil lost to Kaval, Lucky Cannon, and Michael McGillicutty; with The Miz lost to Lucky Cannon and Mark Henry)
Promos: We got to see the Alex Riley video package with the pros commenting on Riley and I thought it was a fair assessment of Riley so far in the competition. I agree with the pros who criticized the ‘varsity villain’ gimmick, unless Cody Rhodes was impressed that someone would Bedazzle their jacket. The people who said that Riley acts like the guy who cannot let the past go were on point (not that wrestling has a good track record of letting the past go). They also talked about how he was confident as well as cocky. Miz appeared to be proud of his rookie, which is a change from the first season. It was interesting to hear Cody talking about how Riley seems like he is playing a character instead of being a character. I think Kofi had the most accurate statement of Alex Riley when he said that Riley is getting a reaction and that is better than not getting a reaction.
Intangibles: I thought Riley looked solid in the match and did a good job following the direction of Miz. When he was told something by Miz, he followed the instruction. Riley definitely did enough to move up the rankings and probably had the best week of the rookies. Even though Riley is not one of my favorites, Riley did enough to move into first place this week. It is up to Riley to stay on top.
Other thoughts on the show:
I thought they did a good job keeping some continuity this week when Mark Henry was not happy to see Miz when he came out at the start of the show. Henry should still be angry at Miz for what he did to him on Monday night. Then they had the two men wrestling in the tag match and Miz did not want to get involved in the match while Henry was the legal man.
I thought the tag match was the better match of the night. I thought Riley had a good performance in the match as well as the pros. I think Lucky Cannon is showing that he will have to embrace his first name in order to survive in this competition.
I did not like the battle royal. First, I did not like the set up for the match. When did Matt Striker become the general manager of NXT so he could set up a match? I didn’t hear any e-mail bell telling us (or is there a singing telegram or Pony Express since it is NXT and not Raw).
As for the match itself, while I was not a big fan of the match, I thought it was a good touch to have Nexus leave the ring so they would last longer. The beat downs after eliminations was okay, but the best part was when Morrison and Kingston helped Porter escape after his elimination. The match felt like it was given four or five minutes too much. There were a few times during the match when you could see the wrestlers saying something to the referees.
I also liked when it was down to six on four (in the every man for himself match [just to remind you the rules of a battle royal]) and Cody Rhodes decided to do his best to avoid any action in order to show why he is ‘Dashing’. I thought Miz eliminating himself was also well done. However, Miz’s best thing in the battle royal was when he threw Ryder out of the ring after Ryder woo woo wooed at Nexus. Morrison’s reaction was pretty funny when he asked Miz why he eliminated Ryder to make the odds worse.
It seemed like a recurring theme in the wrestling matches tonight on a show where we are looking for the next WWE Superstar was that we really don’t care about the ‘future stars’. In the tag match, Mark Henry wrestled most of the match for his team. The focus of the battle royal was the pros and Nexus, not the rookies.
If the battle royal was ‘every man for themselves’ and as Matt mentioned a ‘twenty man battle royal’, why were all six members of Nexus declared the winner? Are they now a collective? If they have achieved the Borg technology, shouldn’t they be feeling the pain that Darren Young felt when he was attacked by John Cena?
The Alex Riley video package was one of the best rookie packages they have done with comments from the pros. Most of the comments were constructive criticism of Riley so it showed what the pros see in him.
It would still be nice to see how the pros voted for the rookies.
I mentioned this in my Raw Thoughts column how John Morrison’s promos have regressed severely. Morrison continues to add nothing to his promos during NXT because everything he says is a shot at his former tag team partner.
It was nice to see that Ashley was back this week because after her absence from last week’s show, I was afraid that she was going to be sent to the Land of Misfit Former Diva Announcers.
It feels like they waste too much time at the start of the show with the one by one introductions of the pros and/or rookies. You can show a video package in the time that could be saved by having the pros already on the stage.
Here is what I would have liked to see happen with Nexus returning to NXT for the first time since their season ended: I would have had a series of matches involving the NXT wrestlers facing Nexus in a series of matches. I would have had an announcement made that there will be an elimination next week on the show, but if a rookie wins their match this week against a member of Nexus, they will have immunity the following week. If a rookie loses the match, they will be put on the chopping block for next week’s show. If there was going to be a tag match and the rookie’s team wins the match, only the wrestler who gets the pin or submission gets immunity; and if the rookie team lost the match, both men would be up for elimination. This way we could see the way that Nexus has developed as wrestlers since the first season ended and we could compare the two seasons.
What to watch on DVR: The video package on Alex Riley; Show Time with Percy Watson
If you enjoy PWInsider.com you can check out the AD-FREE PWInsider Elite section, which features exclusive audio updates, news, our critically acclaimed podcasts, interviews and more by clicking here!
Bang On Casino
