A Review of WWE NXT 2nd August, 2011

Many of us don’t even know that WWE NXT, which has produced many current WWE superstars like Daniel Bryan, Alex Riley and Wade Barrett, is well into its fifth season. The first two seasons were good with many new superstars emerging out at the end of each season. The third season, which was an all diva show lead to the downfall of the show because of crappy matches and challenges. The fourth season too followed suit with unworthy contestants. The fourth season turned out to be so much unworthy that even its winner – Johnny Curtis, is yet to make his debut on Smackdown, almost three months after the end of season 4. He had announced last week that he will be involved in a match on this week’s Smackdown. Let us wait and see how that turns out to be for him. The fifth season was touted to be ‘NXT Redemption’ which gave a chance for the rookies who lost out on first four seasons to try their luck again to become a WWE superstar by getting a chance to participate in NXT season 6 and also the choice to pick their own pro in season 6.

A quick recap of the important events that have taken place till now in NXT season 5:

NXT Season 5 began with the following 6 rookies who had lost in previous editions of NXT.

1. Darren Young with Chavo Guerrero as his Pro
2. Byron Saxton with Yoshi Tatsu as his Pro
3. Titus O’ Neill with Hornswoggle as his Pro
4. Lucky Cannon with Tyson Kidd as his Pro
5. Conor O’ Brian With Vladimir Kozlov as his Pro
6. Jacob Novak With JTG as his Pro

Among these six 4 men got eliminated in the following order Jacob Novak, Byron Saxton, Lucky Cannon, Conor O’Brian . Then we had the surprise return of NXT Season 4 rookie – Derrick Bateman with his pro Daniel Bryan. The three men – Darren Young, Derrick Bateman and Titus O’ Neill have been there for nearly a month since the elimination of Conor O’Brian took place. NXT season 3 rookie, and current WWE Diva AJ too made a brief return to the show over the past few weeks wherein she has been showing interest over Hornswoggle. We never know when season 5 will end and season 6 will begin. Let us take a look at what happened during this week’s show.

WWE NXT Redemption 2/8/2011: Review

Opening Match: Vladimir Kozlov Vs JTG

Singles Match

These two guys have been feuding even when their rookies were a part of the show. It has been a month since their elimination took place and still these two WWE superstars are in a match at NXT. It was funny to see the ‘Moscow Mauler’ Vladimir Kozlov come out in gangster attire similar to that of JTG. Both Kozlov and JTG have been NXT exclusives for the past month with both of them not being featured either in Raw or in Smackdown. Kozlov dominates JTG in the match and gets the pinfall victory.

Winner: Vladimir Kozlov

In-ring Segment 1: Tyson Kidd ridicules Yoshi Tatsu

Tyson Kidd comes out to the ring and cuts a promo stating that he wants WWE to be like it was during the days of Hitman and Daveboy and not like nowadays where people use and worship dolls/action figures or parade around with some crappy music. He was obviously referring to Yoshi Tatsu. A nice promo from Tyson Kidd, who has been pretty much off mainstream TV, for the last few weeks. Hopefully, this promo might improve his stature to be back on smackdown.

Main Event: Matt Striker & Titus O’ Neil Vs Darren Young & Derrick Bateman

Tag Team Match

This match marks the return of Matt Striker, who tried his luck at being a commentator for a year, back to in-ring action. He made his entrance to his old teacher theme song. Young and Bateman dominated most parts of the match. Striker was the victim of the beating given by Young. Striker manages to tag in Titus who hits his spinebuster finisher and gets the pinfall victory for his team. The commentary for this match included Hornswoggle and AJ and hence there isn’t much to say about the quality of commentating during this match.

Winners: Matt Striker & Titus O’ Neil

Matt Striker and Titus celebrating their victory with Hornswoggle and AJ

NXT Rookie Records:

• Derrick Bateman: Win/loss record: 3-1, Redemption Points: 0
• Darren Young: Win/loss record 7-14, Redemption Points: 7
• Titus O’Neil: Win/loss 12-7, Redemption Points: 30

The Bottomline:

NXT is actually not as bad as you might be thinking. Wrestling quality is good, since the matches mostly involve experienced WWE Superstars. Feuds are being continued week after week, which is good. But, I wonder when this season will conclude, because seems to be going on forever. Overall, it was an above average quality wrestling show to watch.