The SmarK Rant for WWE NXT 2.0 – 11.16.21
Live from Orlando, FL
Your hosts are Vic Joseph, Wade Barrett & Beth Phoenix
Oh man Office 365 updated today and now it’s like Microsoft Word 2.0 or something. Not a huge fan of the new look.
Tony D’Angelo v. Dexter Lumis
Once again for the announcers, the delivery of a dead fish as a Sicilian message is to indicate that someone is ALREADY dead, not that they’re going to die. If the mafia went around giving out dead fish to people who they just wanted to whack, no one would get anything done. We get a footrace around the ring and Tony puts the boots to Dexter, but then makes the mistake of pointing to his head to indicate intelligence and Lumis lays him out. Dexter slugs away in the corner as D’Angelo looks like a mall Santa with his red velvet jumpsuit pants and black boots. Tony goes to a chinlock, but Lumis counters with the Silence and makes the comeback with a corner clothesline. So D’Angelo grabs Dexter’s easel to distract the ref, and then thumbs him in the eye and gets his neckbreaker dealie for the pin at 3:00. And then we transition right to Carmelo and Trick attacking Lumis for the beatdown, as they Pillmanize his hand. That’s his stabbing hand! This was RIGHT out of WWF Superstars in 1992. ½* Tony D’Angelo has a funny act backstage but in the ring he’s on par with The Goon and TL Hopper.
Johnny Gargano joins us in the ring, throwing out a challenge to Carmelo, but Pete Dunne responds instead because we need 18 overlapping storylines in every segment, apparently. Carmelo and Trick interrupt from a balcony and they jibber jabber and Carmelo challenges them to a three-way match next week for the title. Why would he want to do that? The answer to that is never explored.
Meanwhile, Diamond Mine is roughhousing backstage when Joe Gacy interrupts with more of his stupid bullshit.
Apparently WarGames is going to be a pay-per-view. GOOD FUCKING LUCK with that. You think people are going to PAY for this shit?
Meanwhile, LA Knight bitches about Grayson Waller. I don’t care.
Roderick Strong & The Creeds v. Jacket Time & Odyssey Jones
Strong goes after Jones right away and then runs away and tags out to Julius. So the babyfaces work him over in their corner, but Jiro gets suplexed into the heel corner and beat up. Brutus gets a deadlift slam that looks like it sucked to be Jiro, but Kushida gets a tag and cleans house on Diamond Mine. And then Strong lays him out from behind and we take a break. Back with Jiro getting beat up again as Brutus drops a knee on him, but Odyssey gets a hot tag and cleans house on the heels. Strong manages to hit an Angle slam for two, but Jones hits him with the splash for the pin at 9:16. What are they even supposed to be building towards with this program? The Cruiserweight champion repeatedly gets beat by a guy who can’t get a title shot. What’s the point? Just a super simple tag match. **
Meanwhile, the Grizzled Young Veterans call their grandmother after stealing the Women’s tag team titles from Toxic Attraction and pretend to be tag team champions.
Meanwhile, MSK are at the airport continuing their quest to do whatever they’ve been doing for the past two weeks and they’re trying to find a shaman of some kind wherever they are. I’ll give 4:1 odds they get cut before they wrap up this dumb storyline.
Xyon Quinn v. Andre Chase
Chase tries working the arm, but Quinn puts him down, so Chase comes back with stomps. Next question, what’s with the weird video screens on the wall showing fake crowd members? Is it supposed to look like there’s more people in the PC? Quinn finishes with his slam deal at 3:00, whatever. And then Legado del Fantasma attacks for a 3-on-1 beatdown and Elektra Lopez looks at the fallen Quinn, and then the camera cuts to Quinn on the ground, and then we cut back to Lopez with the same look on her face, and then we cut back to Quinn on the ground again, and then we cut back to Lopez again, and then they show a REPLAY of Lopez standing there looking at him right afterwards. Actually I’m sorry that I insulted WWF Superstars 1992 earlier by comparing it to this amateur hour shitshow.
Meanwhile, you can buy the new Bruno Sammartino shirts exclusively if you’re at Survivor Series this Sunday! That’s a pretty limited run, then. They’ll only need to bring, what, 4000 shirts?
Meanwhile, Raquel Gonzalez whines and cries about losing the NXT title and blames it on Dakota Kai. Real good babyface there.
POKER SHOWDOWN: Duke Hudson v. Cameron Grimes
So yeah, they’re doing this in the ring and they play it like one of the TV poker shows that actually air on Sportsnet before this show. So Grimes has nothing and goes all in on the last card and Duke folds and then snaps and beats up Grimes because once again Duke is apparently the Dino Bravo of Texas Hold ‘Em and gets beat by a rube at his own rigged game multiple times. So poor Grimes gets powerbombed through the table and Duke finds a pair of scissors under the ring and cuts his hair and beard in frustration. See that at least is a real bit of stakes.
Josh Briggs & Brooks Jensen v. Kyle O’Reilly & Von Wagner
The announcers talk about how Kyle and Von have to set aside their differences and work together as a team. Why? Why do they need to be a team in the first place? Are they being compelled to team up against their will? Why can’t they just go their own way and find other partners? They haven’t been particularly effective as a team anyway. Briggs and Wagner trade shoulderblocks and the faces work Briggs over in the corner, but Kyle comes in and the rednecks double-team him with vicious bearhugs. Beth describes the repeated bearhugs as “their hard-hitting style”. Sure go with that. Von Wagner comes back in and does some slams and goes AAAAAAAARGH a bunch of times and then does another slam and pins one of the guys at 5:00. This show is thrilling. *1/2 And Kyle looks like he could not give any less of a crap about being there. Just cut the poor guy loose and let him go to AEW already.
Lashing Out with Lash Legend, but Grayson Waller runs in and does a promo about old indie guys that’s supposed to be spilling the tea. Oh no, Grayson Waller is mad, I’m betting the veterans waiting out their contracts so they can go to AEW are so scared.
Gabby Stevens & Jenna Levyv. Persia Perotta
So Indi is back checking on Dexter, and this is a handicap match as a result, and that oughta be something. Oh also Robert Stone is hanging around as well so I guess him being a wrestler again only lasted a week before they changed their mind again. Persia throws the jobbers around and gets them both on her back for a double samoan drop and then does another slam on one of the girls for the pin at 1:49. This was bad. DUD
Meanwhile, Dakota Kai is all CRAZY and talking CRAZY with CRAZY pink hair. And then Toxic Attraction interrupts, but the Vets interrupt that interruption and give them the tag titles back.
Meanwhile, Ciampa starts a promo and then changes his mind and decides to go to the ring instead.
Tommaso Ciampa joins us as promised complaining about the lack of respect in the locker room, but Bron Breakker interrupts. You know, if they couldn’t call him Rex Steiner, why not use his first name and call him Rex Bronson instead? Now THAT’S a badass name. So Bron wants another title shot, but Ciampa shows us footage of Halloween Havoc where he won the first time. And there were WAY more people in the building that night. Ciampa once again gets cute and says Bron has “less than a 33% chance of winning again” and walks off.
MEDICAL UPDATE: Dexter Lumis has been taken to a local medical facility.
Raquel Gonzalez v. Dakota Kai
Raquel tosses Dakota around the ring and beats on her outside, and then gets a body vice in the ring and rams Dakota into the corner. Gonzalez charges and hits the floor and we take a break. Back with Kai hanging Gonzalez on the top rope and I guess it was supposed to hurt Raquel but Dakota went flying back and took a bump to the floor off it. The fake audience on the video screen is very excited about it. Seriously, how embarrassing is it that they can’t even give away 300 tickets to this show and need to actually show video of “fans” to make it look more full? Raquel gets a senton out of the corner for two and tries the chokeslam, but Dakota slips out and rolls her up for two. Gonzalez tries a stretch muffler and ends up slamming Kai instead, but Dakota runs her into an exposed corner and then grabs a shovel. But then Raquel gets it and Toxic Attraction runs in for the DQ at 10:48. **1/4 Cora Jade makes the save with her skateboard but she gets beat up, so Io Shirai makes another save with Zoey Stark’s crutch. And they do a horrible sloppy brawl and then Io Shirai challenges them to a WarGames match. I mean, I guess we should be happy because that could be the most gloriously horrifying trainwreck in the short history of NXT 2.0 but I’d rather not see Cora Jade literally die or anything. And that’s a distinct possibility given how well the ladder match went. Also, they already lost the tag team titles to the heels fair and square, and then they lost a six-man fair and square, so what exactly makes me want to see them get revenge in a double cage match?
I don’t know if we’ve hit bottom on this show yet but they’re sure flailing around looking for it.