WWE NXT RANT

by Malcolm Not in the Middle

February 8, 2011

We… Are … Welllllll … Hung.

Hey guys, Malcolm Not in the Middle here. You know what the annoying part of doing these reviews is? The fact WWE programming comes on late at night, so we don't get to start these reviews until 11pm. You know how awesome these Rants would be if everyone got Wild and Young at around 5pm? Honestly, I dunno how Cameron Burge does it. Oh well, that's why he's Writer of the Year, I suppose.

Pretty straight to the point Rant today, as I have an early morning of tomorrow. Why oh why did I make that silly New Year's Resolution? For the OFF TOPIC subject this week, I thought I'd take a look back at some of my favorite moments in the 41 weeks I've been doing this Rant. This Rant has been not only a cool job, but an adventure. So I thought I'd take the time to share some with you guys.

ALSO! A nice little shout out to Pablo Retana, who was the only guy to recognize where that line Brodus Clay stole last week came from. The answer was Rocky III, said by Mr. T at the press conference. Congrats Pablo! Your movie knowledge is up there with me!

We get ourselves a little montage showing off all the remaining Rookies. Really nothing that's re-inventing the wheel here: Brodus looks intimidating, Bateman is funny, Curtis tries too hard to be Bateman, and Bryon is the love child of Bryant Gumble and Carlton Banks. One really overly used opening later, and we're thrown violently into our first challenge.

CHALLENGE! THE JOUST!!!

American Gladitors Joust this is not. This challenge is pretty much what ya expect: Two wrestlers stand on the platforms, and try to knock each other off with foam staves. I will say I have to complain about this little arena they inflated for this challenge. Joust is a challenge in itself without figuring out how to stand on a beach ball to boot. I have to question how the hell Brodus is going to even stand on his platform?

1^st Match: Johnny Curtis vs. Derrick Bateman

Yes, the battle of the morons. This one doesn't last too long as Curtis lunges at Bateman and hits the floor.

Winner: Bateman

2^nd Match: Brodus Clay vs. Bryon Saxton

After pacing around for a bit and looking at the pedestal, Brodus DQ's himself by shoving Bryon off his pedestal. He then tells NXT to sit and rotate on it, as we all know he can't stand on that platform, so he ain't going to embarrass himself. Smart move, I must say.

Winner: Saxton

Finals: Byron Saxton vs. Derrick Bateman

Match goes until Bateman strikes forward, this time however Saxton's feet hit the floor first. However, the ref's on this show are retarded, so…

Winner: Saxton

Josh thus far is the only one who seems to care about seeing the replay and eventually gets one. I assume the crowd can see it too, as the crowd begins to react to it. The replay shows that Saxton hit first, and that the ref made a bad call. The crowd is booing and Bateman wants a reversal, but the ref refuses on the account that he's a moron. They show the footage again, this time freezing it, once again showing the decision to be bullshit.

Suddenly, Matt Striker is pretty sympathetic towards Bateman's situation and that since we're in the home of the Superbowl Champions, they will make right decision and have a rematch right now… how buddy, wouldn't the right decision be to reverse the decision? Its not a question of who won, Bateman clearly had- oh nevermind.

Final Finals: Saxton vs. Bateman

Saxton legit ends this thanks to, and I shit you not, bonking Bateman on the top of his head.

Winner: Saxton

Two shit calls in a row; that has to be a record for WWE refs. Saxton gets two points, which make the standings:

3 – Curtis
2 – Bateman
2 – Saxton
0 – Brodus

In case you forgot, we will have an elimination tonight. While this cut really isn't exciting, least this race for immunity is close. Commercials!

OFF TOPIC: My first column I'll always remember. I had followed NXT, and enjoyed reading the site's coverage on the show… however; it was tough finding a consistent writer for it. I believe they went through 2-3 different guys before they just stopped completely. This period of no reviews went on for a long time… and after awhile it started to tick me off. As I've said before, I remember when this site was jumping with many columns, but it had never been so bad that they completely missed a legit WWE show (which at the time, NXT was) and I wanted to do something. So I offered cover NXT for Sean… one audition column later, I was in.

Personally, I thought Sean would say no. I'd never had a serious writing job, so the fact Sean said yes, I'd like to think meant he saw some potential in me. I dunno, but I want to thank Sean Carless for this job. It's been an honor.

We are back, and we head right into a match!

BYRON SAXTON VS. DERRICK BATEMAN

As a recap of last week shows, this match was brought about thanks to Derrick Bateman's reveal of Dolph's real name being "Turd Ferguson" This is sad for many reasons. Namely A) WWE having to rip off SNL for comedy, and B) making me realize how far WWE has fallen in terms of quality and maturity. I honestly think the Pro's were as happy as they were because they got to say the word Turd as often as they did! God I pray to Jesus that this doesn't turn to a running gag…

Have to say; if I were Brodus Clay, I'd feel pretty jipped. Right off the bat, he gets stuck with Ted Dibiase as a Pro. He wins battle royal and trades up to Alberto Del Rio, which on paper is awesome. However, a week or so later, Del Rio wins the Rumble, and now has no time for NXT. Long story short, Richardo Freakin Rodriguez is now his Pro. Scary thing is, he may still win.

This match is actually pretty good, as these two have good chemistry. I realize this is going to sound like a backhanded compliment, but it had a cool indy feel to it, as the match was really good. Yes, I really would have loved this match if not for one thing…

Turd… Turd… Turd… Turd… Turd…

I want Chris Masters to die. Christ I want him to die after this match, as that was the chant coming from him the ENTIRE match just to incite the crowd. And he says this chant in a dry monotone voice that's just irritating. Ziggler's awesome acting doesn't help matters here either. The whole spectacle of course, gets the announcers to stop calling the match, and laugh at Ziggler. And I have to ask, WWE does realize that a show focusing on new talent… should focus on the new talent, right?

Another annoying thing, Grisham and Josh go onto say at one point in the match "I think whoever loses this match, will be eliminated." Really WWE? You want me to stop watching their show that badly?

The end comes as Bateman tries for a figure four on Saxton, but funny enough, looks like me when I first tried to do the move. Saxton eventually rolls him up, but gets two. He then school boys him and even pulls the tights, but still gets two. After the kick out and some squirming, Bateman actually locks in a LaBell Lock out of nowhere for the win!

WINNER: Bateman

Funny thing, they show the replay and they make a big deal about how Daniel Bryan was shouting instructions to Bateman and instructing him to slap on the LaBell Lock… despite the fact that you can clearly see he was just standing there with a blank expression.

Later for tonight, we see the main event for tonight is Johnny Curtis vs. Brodus Clay… which I have to admit, has my interest as there's some actual history between these two! Nice!

OFF TOPIC: I remember my little "feud" with former Smackdown writer, Jordan Huie, who's last name my Word program still refuses to believe is spelled correctly. I forget how it started; we had a small war of words that continued for a few weeks. This feud actually lead to my first bit of fanmail!

See for weeks, I didn't receive a single piece of feedback. Good news, I thought, as no feedback means I'm not pissing anyone off, but I was still curious to see what people thought. The feedback was one sentence long: "Stop fucking around with Jordan, no one wants to read that shit!" Thankfully for the reader, Jordan didn't last too long ^_^;;;

We're back, and oh goodie, we have another challenge…

CHALLENGE! TEST OF KNOWLEDGE OF WWE PRODUCTS!!!

Yeah, you read that right. Basically, its WWE ripping off the Price is Right. They show a WWE product, and the Rookies guess the retail value. Rules of Price is Right apply. Winner gets 3 points, so it's anyone's game.

BTW, for anyone who cares, they have AJ and Naomi from Season 3 shilling out the items. Josh hopes that Cole might come out, since he on Season 3 as well. Hey Josh, you remember you hate Cole on all the other shows, right?

PRODUCT 1: Top 50 Superstars of all time DVD

Brodus: $29.99
Byron: $24.99
Bateman: $19.99
Curtis: $1

PRICE: $34.95

Winner: Brodus

Product 2: WWE Magazine for Kids

Curtis: $6.95
Bateman: $9.99
Byron: $10
Brodus: $1

PRICE: $3

Winner: Brodus

Product 3: Foam Belt of World Title

Bateman: $39.99
Brodus: $19.95
Byron: $19.99
Curtis: $30.11

PRICE: $19.99

Winner: Saxton

Product 4: History of WWE Title Belt Book

Byron: $28.95
Bateman: $38,451 (lol)
Curtis: $30
Brodus: $23

PRICE: $28

Winner: Brodus Clay

Brodus Clay and Johnny Curtis are now tied for immunity points, which is a first for NXT… which should be at least interesting, but Josh and Grisham have this amazing ability to make anything sound boring. They speculate for a bit on how the officials could possibly figure out who gets the deciding point. Yup, they have no idea how to figure out which of the two wrestlers, who have a match against each other later in the show, get that extra point…. Sigh.

OFF TOPIC: It would be pretty hard to neglect the love/hate relationship I have with Halo. I honestly dunno if we're friends or enemies at this point. We started off cool, and did that cool column switch (which will never happen again unless she chills out a bit :P) and then I called the bad guys in Star Wars THE EMPIRE, it was all over. She stopped following me on twitter and everything. How a teenager cares that much about Star Wars is impressive. Typically, you have to be going into your 40's for that kind of affection. However, she's made my stay here pretty interesting. So cheers to her!

We come back to an elimination chamber montage. My opinion? Chamber matches became less interesting after they took away the blood. Ten minutes of chamber awesomeness later, we cut to the back for a Johnny Curtis and R-Truth segment. Oh fantastic, a segment involving the two guys who absolutely cannot sound like they're not reading off a cue card. Here's the jist of there conversation: Curtis confronts him about talking behind his back, Truth doesn't deny it, Curtis starts to rip into R Truth, Truth counters by telling him to don't worry about it, and Curtis says yes sir. Truth then says how great it is to be in Wichita, Kansas. I may have just made up that last part.

OFF TOPIC: Joining Twitter. Simply as it's allowed me to interact with readers of the Rant easier, and I've even made some cool friends like DN Spunk and SandoraElite. Once again, I'm @NotintheMiddle, feel free to follow me.

BRODUS CLAY VS. JOHNNY CURTIS

Funny start to this off the bat, as Dolph sings the "What's up?!" parts of R Truth's song. He even yells out "Milwaukee, WI! Whats up?!" See, that's how it's done, Truth. Honestly though, he must be getting SO much shit for that fuck up last night. And why not? He has one job to do as a wrestler and he fucked it up!

Story of this match is once again the Pro's are five year olds, and can't stop saying "Turd" for two seconds. Okay, it sort of made sense in the previous match cause Saxton is Dolph's protégé, but Ziggler isn't in this match!

Anyway, pretty nice and physical match here, and it's a shame that the antics outside the ring took away from this one. End comes as Brodus hits a running powerslam, which I guess is his new finisher.

Winner: Brodus Clay

Striker comes out and tells the Pro's to tally their votes as someone is going home.

OFF TOPIC: Coolest thing would have to be being a part of the Fannies. It was a shock that I was in it, but its was really awesome… you can see this awesome piece of business here.

So this night of BS decisions continues as Striker tells Brodus and Curtis to step forward. Striker goes into how a tie for immunity has never happened so to decide this (Instead of just saying the match was it) they have 20 seconds each to convince the crowd. That's right, the fair and just way they came up with to settle this tie between the face and the heel is to have the crowd decide…. SERIOUSLY?!?!!?

I will thank Curtis for one thing, he shows off how insipid and broken having the WWE Universe pick anything is. Curtis takes the mic and yells "PACKERS RULE!" That's it, and guess what? He won. This despite Striker sorta pleading with the audience that this isn't popularity contest.

So Brodus got screwed, but thankfully he wasn't the one who got eliminated.

Character Retrospective: Byron Saxton

BEGINNING: Jesus Christ! Bryon Saxton is a wrestler?!

NOW: He wasn't terrible, he just needs to figure out a moveset, and how to be an effective heel and he could have something.

FUTURE: Sure we'll see him back in some capacity soon.

Have to say, this elimination is kinda harsh. Saxton is about to cry, and meanwhile you have every face laughing at him. The fuck you laughing at Masters? You ain't main eventing anything but Superstars. Even Josh and Grisham are laughing here.

Saxton eventually starts yelling at the WWE Universe, and calls them basically idiots for voting him out…. But he forgives them. Very bi-polar promo here, but he says he'll be back. He heads up the ramp, but Ziggler cuts him off, and he really rips into the kid. He finally calls him a piece of garbage and to leave his arena. They have a staredown…. And I have to believe Saxton was supposed to hit him, or that Ziggler was actually trying to get him to hit him to make him look cool. Even the other Pro's are saying hit him… but Saxtons declines, instead pointing to the hard cam off screen. If that was an invitation by Ziggler, that was a really big missed opportunity.

BEST THING OF THE NIGHT, OR "THE DEWEY AWARD":  Derrick Bateman was pretty funny this whole night.

AWFUL THING OF THE NIGHT, OR "THE REESE AWARD":  Turd… Turd… Turd…

WTF MOMENT OF THE NIGHT, OR "THE FRANCIS AWARD":  You have the crowd decide the tiebreaker between the heel and the face? Really?

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