Mid-Week Wrestling Wrap-Up 9/2: That Darn Kendrick; NXT’s New King; Rosemary’s Baby

Alex PawlowskiSeptember 2, 2016, 9:30 pm

Welcome to the first ever
Mid-Week Wrestling Wrap-Up.

Published here every Friday,
I will assess and report on the goings-on in NXT, The Cruiserweight Classic,
Lucha Underground, and TNA.
(The TNA section will just be a Broken Matt Hardy Update)
If something is great, I’ll put it over.
If something is butt, I will savage it with jokes.
Agreed?
Cool.

NXT 8/31: NXT’s New King

Kayfabe Broken.

Raise your hand if you actually think Samoa Joe is injured.

No? Yeah me neither.

So here’s what’s happening:

Triple H just announced that the next Takeover event will take place on November 19, in Toronto, Canada, as the first part of a huge Survivor Series weekend.

They’re going to string us all along and do Joe vs Nakamura II for that PPV, almost three full months after the first one happened.

You heard that trainer struggle to get out his lines. He doesn’t think he will be able to clear Joe for competition “any time soon.”

Joe vs Nak 2. November 19. Book it.
Joe loses. Book that too.
Then he goes up to the main roster.

I wish Joe would just lose at a random full sail taping, make it an Iron Man match or something. Hell, make it a cage match, since Joe won the last one he was in. Get Joe up to the main roster right away.

But they’re not doing that, since Joe appears in the advertising for the Australia tour, which isn’t until DECEMBER.

Just give us the Nakamura rematch already so Joe can lose again and get called up to the main roster where I can watch him fight Kevin Owens or AJ Styles or Brock Lesnar kthnksbye.

Wait, you’re not doing that? But I said “kthnksbye.” Is that not legally binding? I need to have a word with my attorney.

Perfect Destiny.

Here’s what they should do.

Tye Dillinger is from Canada. Imagine the pop he’s going to get in Toronto.

Spend the next three months building up Tye Dillinger. Have him win a #1 Contender’s Battle Royal by skinning the cat or something, then have him have to defend the #1 Contendership against Samoa Joe when Joe is “healthy” enough to compete. Tye takes a horrific beating, but is able to win with a roll-up.

Joe snaps out on Tye after the match, kayfabe injuring him. Tye gets medically cleared for his match with Shinsuke at Takeover Toronto, but just barely.

He enters the match with Shinsuke riding the wave of the greatest underdog story in recent memory.

I don’t know what would happen in that match, but I’ll say this:

Shinsuke Nakamura is the 9th Champion in NXT’s History.

Tye Dillinger would be the 10th.

Just sayin’.

Dillinger defeated Wesley Blake in Brooklyn, broadcast on last week’s show. He was hugely over then, and he’s hugely over here, facing Blake’s old tag partner, Buddy Murphy.

This guy managed to take a gesture where he shows all ten of his fingers to his opponent, and make it into like the third most over thing in NXT, behind only Bobby Roode’s entrance theme and pretty much anything Nakamura does.
Give the man a gold star. He’s ~~fantastic~~ a consummate showman. Although I have to agree with Corey Graves. He does do a cartwheel like a circus panda.

Here is the finish , because there is no YouTube video for this match.

So if Tye gets called up to SmackDown, does he have to stop using that move for his finisher, since AJ Styles does it in every match and never gets a pinfall with it?

Also, does he have to change the name of it from The Tye Breaker to “USHI-GOROSHI!!!!!”, since that’s what Mauro Ranallo is going to call it anyway?

As the Ciampa turns…

Man, if I were Tommaso Ciampa, I would be so pissed at Johnny Gargano for being such a huge wussy that he had to tap out twice, first costing Ciampa the Tag TItles, then himself a shot at the Cruiserweight Classic Trophy.

And then he’s not around to help out with this ambush by the Revival, since he’s sitting poolside with his bad leg elevated, drinking Mai Tais with little umbrellas in them. It’s unfair, I tells ya.

This is just another step towards the imminent Tommaso Ciampa heel turn that I wrote about last week, and I can’t wait.

Ciampa crawling back into the ring aftert the beatdown and basically BEGGING to get hit with the Shatter Machine was about as cool as it gets.

The Fonz looks at Tommaso Ciampa crawling back into the ring and begging to get hit with the Shatter Machine, and says “Well, I had a good run. But it’s over.”

Also, The Revival might be my favorite Tag Team in the history of Professional Wrestling.

Steve Cutler wins a televised match.

In other news, apparently pigs have sprouted wings and the temperature in Hell is currently 12 degrees.

Here is how it went down:

Cutler’s opponent is Kenneth Crawford, making his televised debut. He’s got a couple impressive moves, but I can’t shake the feeling that he’s basically Bargain Bin Cedric Alexander.

Couple extra things: Steve Cutler looks like a guy who gets punched by Sylvester Stallone in an action movie in 1988.

Steve Cutler’s next match is reportedly next week, vs Shinsuke Nakamura, so it looks like Cutler’s win streak is going to end at 1.

Also am I the only one who’s getting a serious Lash LeRoux vibe from his new look?

He definitely goes to the same barber.

Wait, you don’t remember Lash LeRoux? Well, congratulations on not being a WCW Nitro fanboy in the year 2000. Congratulations on not having a brain full of useless wrestling knowledge from a decade and a half ago

He was a cruiserweight whose entire character was based on the fact that he had L-shaped sideburns, “L” being the first letter of both his first and last names.

And now you know.

Now you know what it is to have this crap rattling around in your brain.

**Hideo Itami ain’t nothin’ to f*ck with.**

If you were looking for a deep reason for why Hideo jacked up Austin Aries at NXT Takeover Brooklyn II: The Squeakuel, get ready to be disappointed.

However, if you were just looking for just casual, take-no-prisoners bad-assery, get ready to be freaking OVERJOYED.

Yup. Turns out Austin Aries was in Hideo’s ring. That’s it. Hideo owns the ring and he has a hard and fast No Trespassing policy that he was just enforcing.

No word on why he didn’t enforce it on all the other NXT performers who were in his ring, but try not to think about it too hard.

It’s wrestling logic, y’all.

Yes Way.

After a good showing but a tough loss at the hands of the aforementioned Austin Aries, No Way Jose gets back to his winning ways by taking out his frustrations on double-headbanded punching bag Angelo Dawkins.

I do wish he would stop with the wind-up baseball punch, but I like the Cobra Clutch Bomb as a finisher.

And the crowd loves him, too. Seems a decent fellow.

Anyone else find it odd, though, that he’s a “Power of Positivity Babyface,” but his name is basically a synonym for “negative?”

Nope? Just me? Cool.

Grouping these next two backstage interviews together for a quick photo essay entitled:

The Dusty Classic Can’t Get Here Soon Enough.

I mean, I assume that Tag Tournament is going to be an annual thing, right?

Anyway, if it is (and please please please, it just has to be, it just has to) we’re definitely getting this matchup in the final four round.

It would be ~~fantastic~~ a very smart booking decision indeed.

Andrade Almas does amazing things in the ring, but can’t quite get over with the crowd; by teaming him with No Way Jose, he can ride that wave of positivity all the way to super stardom.

And putting Aries and Bobby Roode back together is almost too perfect. The one thing I hope they do is insist on referring to themselves as the Transcendant Natural Athletes. But they should get really mad when anyone tries to abbreviate their Tag Name, which again, should be “Transcendant Natural Athletes.” Anyone trying to call them by the acronym gets shut down super fast.

Please do this. Please.

Without wrestling, she’s just Livving.

Liv Morgan got her first win on NXT TV on Wednesday. I believe her record is now 1-382. She appears to be getting a minor push.

As we’ve discussed before, she’s got five frames in the opening credits:

Minor push confirmed.

Mini-Mella is cute and all, but she’s not ready for the big time. Case in point, this is how she finished her first televised victory:

Wait, what?

This. This is what:

I don’t think that qualifies as a kick.

Just give her the Spike Dudley bulldog as a finisher or something, because that spin kick, or whatever the hell it’s supposed to be, is some weak sauce. It is the weakest sauce.

I’ll tell you what’s not the weakest sauce. Aliyah and every thing about her.

That girl is going to be a STAR. Watch every frame of her entrance here:

THAT EYEROLL THO.

Also, she has a submission move that she needs to be winning matches with like NOW, and ON THE REG.

That is a combination Kimura Lock/Body Scissors.
It is bending her opponent in half and it is DOOOOOOOOOOOOPE.

Aliyah for NXT Women’s Champ.

You know, after Ember Moon beats Asuka. After that.

Absolute Power.

So Shinsuke Nakamura is the new NXT Champ, and I’m worried.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Shinsuke. The guy never fails to astound me.

But who is going to beat him now? I mean, if superpowered rage-fueled Samoa Joe couldn’t beat him, who’s taking the title from him?

Bobby Roode? Oney Lorcan? Tino Sabbatelli?

And a babyface champ without any threatening challengers is just boring. No matter how astounding he is.

Now, if you know what happened at the tapings last week, this appears to be being addressed.

But I’m still worried.

My vote (the events of the tapings notwithstanding): Turn Shinsuke into the arrogant, nobody can beat me tweener, while building Tye Dillinger into the underdog babyface, leading into Takeover Toronto.

I mean, I know I won’t get that, but a guy can dream, right?

CWC 8/31: That Darn Kendrick

So as to not bog down this post, I’ve included all of the GIFs from the episode in another post, which you can see HERE.

Gran Metalik vs Akira Tozawa

This match was really, REALLY good. Great even. Dare I say, stupdenous.

It was so far overshadowed by the match that followed it, that I am afraid people will have forgotten about it by the time the tournament is over.

Metalik should be paired with Kalisto TOMORROW as the new Lucha Dragons, and Sin Cara can just go away. Seriously, this guy does all the things Sin Cara can do, but better.

And he can do this, which I’m pretty sure if Sin Cara tried would result in the most hilarious botch ever:

And he can also do this, which I’m pretty sure if Sin Cara tried would result in his death.

Tozawa is an excellent performer. His fake-out jab remains one of my Top 5 favorite recurring wrestler spots of the tournament. (Don’t ask me for the other Four, because I will name 37 things.)

I love it.

They built a story over the past two rounds that if Tozawa hit you with his two Germans, the Snap and the Bridge, that was it. Finito. OVAH.

He did it here, but Metalik kicked out anyway, leading to Metalik landing his own un-kickout-able move:

The Metalik Driver.

Which, y’know, ouch.

Metalik is going to be a fascinating opponent for Zack Sabre Jr in the next round (sorry. spoiler alert), since Sabre has yet to face a high flyer in this tournament.

Metalik’s also already signed to WWE, and Sabre turned down an offer, so we’ll see how that informs the booking decision.

Either way that match is going to be ~~FANTASTIC~~ an interesting contest between two contrasting styles.

That Darn Kendrick.

Regular readers of my CWC stuff know that for the first two rounds of the tournament, I hated Brian Kendrick.

It all started when I was doing research for my HUGE BRACKETOLOGY PREVIEW, where I found out that Brian Kendrick believes that the moon is actually a hollowed out alien spy station, that Barack Obama is a lizard person, and that 9/11 was faked using holograms and mirrors. You can listen to this crazy-pants wacko-bird spew that junk and more HERE.

Then came the matches. In the first round, he targeted Raul Mendoza’s adult braces.

I had honestly never seen that before
Mendoza started bleeding from the mouth. It was grisly.

Then, in Round Two, he somehow trapped Tony Nese’s arm in the turnbuckle pad.

That was a new one for me, too.
Brian Kendrick: All new cheap moves.

Kendrick’s story was that he believed that this was his last shot at redemption, his last chance at one more WWE contract, and he was going to do whatever he had to do to win, even if that included ripping out a man’s orthodontia.

I hated it. I had come to think of the CWC as the Olympics of Professional Wrestling, and cheaters simply didn’t belong.

It certainly didn’t help my viewing experience when Daniel Bryan on commentary was actively cheering for him. I know they’re real-life friends, that they trained together, all of that, but Daniel Bryan is the ultimate baby-face, and it was jarring to listen to him sing the praises of a guy who was fighting dirtier than Ric Flair in a mud wrestling match.

Somehow, all of that changed with this match. Oh, I was still rooting for Ibushi to win, but this was the first time I was sure that Kendrick would lose. Kendrick had already faced two men who were much better athletes than him, stronger and faster, but this was the first time that Kendrick didn’t have the experience advantage.

Kendrick had been wrestling with an edge before, looking for that opening to get a little dig in on Mendoza or Nese, cause them to make a mistake that he could capitalize on.

But in this match, against Kota Ibushi, pound for pound one of the best in the world, and a guy who’s been doing this twice as long as Mendoza and Nese combined, Kendrick knows he’s going to lose. This is going to be it for him. No tournament victory. No contract. No redemption.

Unless he almost kills Ibushi. Unless he gets the ref to stop the match. Unless he breaks the other guy’s neck. And this is how he fought the entire match:

But Ibushi was too resilient, too strong, too good, (even kicking out of a GODDAMN BURNING MOTHERF*CKING HAMMER) and he wins.

After the match, Daniel Bryan, champion of his friend and training partner, comes down to the ring and hugs a sobbing Brian Kendrick.

They have a moment in the backstage interview, and I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. That Darn Kendrick. I started to feel for him. I realized how much this meant to him, how much it meant to his old friend, Daniel Bryan, who could never get back in the ring himself, and I thought “How much of those tears are because Kendrick he wanted to win this tournament for Daniel, and he feels like he failed?” and then I started to cry. Warned you last week, people. Big ol’ softie.