It has been quite the month for wrestling fans with a
multitude of different high profile shows from different companies all over the
world during the month of May and that continued last night with Payback and
will extend further into the week when we are treated to our first NXT Live
Special since February. Just going to do a quick review and preview of those
two shows here. Not a traditional style review and preview, just my general
musings. These musings may contain potential
spoilers, you have been warned.
We start with Payback. I’ve not long finished watching it
having been at work all day (and up early preventing my watching of the show
last night). It was a pretty average show with few highlights if truth be
told. The Tag Team division continue to kill it with The New Day transforming
themselves from being dangerously close to Big Show levels of making me want to
change the channel all the way to one of the most entertaining acts on the
entire roster. Cesaro and Tyson, to the surprise of no-one except maybe Vince,
are getting really over as faces and they are the perfect foil for the Tag
Champions at the minute.
I thought their two out of three falls match was a lot of
fun even if it did feel far too short, if they were going to do two out of three
falls they should have given the guys more time. You’d think after watching the
guy for the better part of a decade now I wouldn’t be surprised by Cesaro’s
feats of strength but I still am. Him throwing Big E around like a small child
will never fail to amuse me. I thought the finish was very clever and worked
well for both teams. I cannot stress how much I am looking forward to the tag
team Elimination Chamber match, I’m not sure quite how it will work
logistically yet but I am sure it is going to be great to watch.
A small diva related quibble. I was fine with the tag match
in general and thought Naomi and Tamina going over made the most sense but why
did Nikki need to kick out of Naomi’s finisher? And much more why did then
Naomi merely dragging a distracted Nikki from the top rope into the ring cause
that much more damage than her finisher did? Bizzare.
Also, I hope Ziggler is okay – that headbutt was straight up
nasty and the blood pouring out of his head was a serious issue. The guy is so
talented I really don’t want to see him sidelined too.
And finally, regarding Payback, what an incredible main
event. It may not have been a five star classic but it was perfectly booked and
about as good as an overly convoluted fatal-4-way with a boatload of interference
can get. The mini-reformation of The Shield was a thing of beauty and goes to
show that a Shield reunion in the future will work fantastically well, just
don’t do it quite yet.
Reigns came across really well in the match. I actually
quite like the guy when he seems to be acting natural and not cutting Looney
Tunes inspired promos. Him and Ambrose sharing a little bit of brotherly love
before beating the hell out of each other in order to gain the biggest prize in
the industry was really well executed. And Reigns' quip outside the ring about
“Loser buys the beers?” came across as actually cool and really relatable
rather than the unrelatable, forced Roman we’ve been subjected to over the past
number of months. More of actually cool Roman Reigns will eventually see the
crowd back on his side.
Now onto NXT and this Wednesday when we will see Takeover:
Unstoppable. This looks set to be yet another great show – as we’ve come to
expect with NXT – despite being plagued and threatened by injuries to some of
the bigger stars. I would have thought they would have announced a change to
the main event by now if Zayn wasn’t going to be fit for the show so it looks
like Zayn/Owens II will thankfully go ahead. More on that later.
With Hideo being injured and out for a significant amount of
time it appears we will see Finn Balor vs. Tyler Breeze for the #1
contendership. It should be a great match but I would have liked to have seen
Hideo in the equation as I think he would probably have been the best choice to
face Owens next (especially given his adorable, absolutely unbooable promo on
last week’s episode where he proclaimed he’d like to fight Owens because “he is
a bad man”). Plus him adding a third dimension to the match would have been
cool. As it stands, Breeze may need to go over because I don’t want Owens to
lose the Championship soon and Balor/Owens again with the same outcome may not
be the right thing to do with Balor.
The tag division is probably the weakest area of NXT right
now but the feud between Team Thick (AKA Blake & Murphy) and Big Cass &
Enzo has been really well built. They’ve even managed to include Carmella and
Alexa in interesting ways which is cool. As much as I’d like to see Enzo and
Cass win the titles I smell shenanigans from a mile away for this one and I
think it will probably work very well.
The women continue to impress. I’ve long been a fan of Becky
Lynch and I got fully on board the Sasha Banks bandwagon in the build-up to her
first match for the Championship against Charlotte well over six months ago.
Both women have been great and the scene is set for another incredible match
between two unbelievably talented women. The contract signing from a recent
episode of NXT was fantastically done. Sasha signing the contract with her
own ‘BOSS’ stamp showcased the little things that NXT just gets right.
The women’s division may be losing a little steam with
Charlotte having now done all she can in NXT and being more than ready for the
main roster leaving only three of the really talented women left. I do hope they push on with the division and build some women up to the same
level as the Sasha’s, Becky’s and Bayley’s of the world. Signings like Jessie
McKay and a rejuvenated, actually interesting to watch Emma are really healthy
signs for the division.
The work the big four have put into this division cannot be
overstated. They have been given the ball and have ran with it. In fact if
Owens/Zayn had been cancelled due to Zayn’s injury I would have been all in
favour of Becky and Sasha main eventing the special.
Speaking of main eventing, I have seen more Zayn/Owens
matches than I can count and they always deliver, the last special was one of
their weakest matches against each other but that was deliberate in order to
build to the bigger story they were telling, which was absolutely fine. I also
think that their feud has not been quite as impactful as it could have been.
That being said, the promo that ended last week’s episode was incredibly well
done. I think, if I were a casual fan, that one promo would have sold me on
this match and I think they will go all out (and knowing them probably succeed)
to have an absolute classic on Thursday – and I can’t wait to see it.
PREDICTIONS: Owens retains, Sasha retains, Blake/Murphy
retain, Corbin wins, Bayley/Charlotte win and Finn wins.
Hope you all enjoyed my little musings tonight. I might
start doing this more regularly as it allows me to vent my anger and release my
joy – as well as getting rid of the occasional craving to just write. Stay
tuned for more potential updates, more of this, more of the rebooking series - when me and Jonathon can find the time and much, much more.
Thanks for reading, enjoy NXT on Wednesday and I hope you’ll
come back to read some more. Until then, if you wish, you can follow me on
twitter @watadam20. See you all soon.
P.S. Baron Corbin and Dana Brooke are also wrestling………………….
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