The SmarK Rant for WWE NXT – 11.13.13
Taped from Orlando, FL
Your hosts are Byron Saxton & William Regal & Tensai
As a reminder, tonight I will be a guest on The Place To Be podcast, discussing the first part of 2001 and hopefully sounding less Canadian tonight. However, god help anyone who asks me to rebook the Invasion. GOD HELP THEM.
Bayley & Charlotte v. Summer Rae & Sasha Banks
Charlotte overpowers Sasha to start and applies a unique hammerlock while Regal bemoans the loss of Renee Young on commentary. Bayley comes in and slugs away on Summer, but walks into a good clothesline that gets two. And with that, we take a break. Back with Sasha holding a chinlock as Bayley is your mark-in-peril. Summer controls with a bodyscissors while Regal struggles through a joke but eventually pulls it off. Why is he not on Smackdown every week? The mean girls continue cutting off the ring, but a belly to belly allows the hot tag…and Charlotte turns on her. Sasha gets the pin at 9:09. Man, you’d think a student of the sport like Bayley would have seen that one coming. So Charlotte is your newest BFF. Is Bayley secretly Sting’s daughter? NEVER TRUST RIC FLAIR! Or his offspring. *1/2 Sadly, Hulu’s screenshot already spoiled this one, because otherwise it was a totally unexpected heel turn.
Meanwhile, Aiden English prepares his vocal cords.
Camacho v. Aiden English
Where the hell is Hunico, anyway? English pounds away in the corner, but walks into a slam from Camacho that gets two. English charges and gets backdropped , allowing Camacho to stomp away on him. English hits the Director’s Cut out of nowhere to finish at 2:13, and the crowd wants an encore. The rose throwing is an awesome touch, although English wrestles like a heel while getting himself over as a huge babyface, so the dynamic is a bit weird. * They could literally bring this act to RAW tomorrow and it would get over HUGE.
Meanwhile, Lana speaks some Russian to Alexander Rusev. He appears to enjoy it.
Mason Ryan v. Danny Burch
Regal goes above and beyond here in trying to come up with a Wales v. England backstory for this squash. Ryan overpowers Burch, but loses a slugfest. Ryan suddenly hulks up, however, and puts him down with a big boot before finishing with a cobra slam at 2:35. Ryan doing the coked up 80s babyface act isn’t fooling anyone.
Meanwhile, it’s EMMALUTION time.
2/3 Falls: Adrian Neville v. Corey Graves
Neville comes in fast but Graves hits him with a cheapshot and gets a suplex for two. Fistdrop gets two. Neville comes back with a dropkick and rolling cradle for two, then goes up and finishes the first fall with the Red Arrow at 2:10. Graves wisely runs away for a bit, and they brawl on the floor. Back in, Neville goes up and Graves runs away again. This time he dodges a flying Neville and takes over as we take a break. Back with Graves going after the knee and applying a half-crab. Neville powers out and gets a sunset flip for two, but Graves keeps on the knee and clips him to set up the Lucky 13 at 11:22. Neville was pretty dumb to fight it as long as he did: If tapping out was inevitable, might as well just tap and start over again. Third fall and Neville’s knee is shot, but he fights back with a head kick, and Graves bails a third time. Back in, Neville gets frustrated and slugs away in the corner, finally putting Graves down before heading to the top. And that goes badly for him, as he falls off and Graves hooks Lucky 13. Neville powers out after a nice dramatic sequence, and Graves stays on the knee until he tries a figure-four and Neville reverses into a cradle for the pin at 16:40. Good simple stuff. **1/2
The Pulse
Next week is the return of BO DALLAS and hopefully Sami Zayn as well. Other than that, who knows? As for this show, we got a good main event and a heel turn, plus Aiden English, so I literally would not want anything more out of my 40 minutes.
