Smarky Re-Cap: WWE NXT: 2/6/13

We kick off NXT with the team of Kassius Ohno and Leo Kruger coming out for their tag team match with Oliver Grey and Adrian Neville. All the guys in this match are extremely talented, and bring their own unique things to the table, so this should be one hell of a match. The winner of course will move on to the finals on the NXT Tag Team Championships. Grey and Neville take control of Kassius Ohno early on with some frequent tags. Kruger and Ohno start to get some offence in once Kruger is tagged in, and he slows down the match by locking an abdominal stretch on Grey. Kruger and Kassius start taking turns stretching Grey’s abs, and it was neat at first but it started to get a little boring after three minutes. Grey finally broke out and started to get some attacks in, but Kruger once again took control of Oliver. Match is pretty slow so far. Hopefully Neville can get tagged in so the pace can quicken up. Grey counters Kruger and the two men hot tag their partners, with Neville getting the upper-hand. Neville gets knocked to the outside by Kassius, who starts to berate William Regal in the announcer’s booth. I’m interested to see where they are going to go with the Kassius/Regal angle, as I don’t think it’s 100% certain that they will have a match. Hopefully they will, and Regal will let Kassius go over like he did with Dean Ambrose down in FCW. Adrian Neville lands a suicide moonsault on Kassius (it was pretty awesome), and takes advantage of Kassius’s downed state to land the corkscrew 450 splash for the win. The match wasn’t as good as I hoped it was, but the last few minutes were pretty awesome.

We go backstage for an interview with Summer Rae, who attacked Paige last week after she accidentally bumped into her. I can safely say that Summer Rae doesn’t really have CM Punk‘s mic skills. Or even Great Khali’s mic skills. Maybe even worse. She did say “Summer School is always in session”, so yes. It’s pretty bad. I’ve never seen the concept of having the ring announcer snap and become a wrestler, so I’m somewhat interested to see what happens next, but I feel like I just won’t care next week. Anyway, we go back to the ring to see CJ Parker in the ring with Conor O’Brian, a man whose name doesn’t fit the gimmick. I know his old gimmick of looking kind of like a rat fit the name, but this dark Undertaker-esque thing can’t really have O’Brian in it. Even though he has a stupid name, he is still pretty impressive. Kind of like McGillicutty. Anyway, the match begins and Conor O’Brian immediately decimates CJ Parker. Obviously wasn’t a shocker since Conor is slated to start a program with Big E and CJ Parker is NXT’s go-to jobber. The match wasn’t long though, so I didn’t mind the squash. He needs to not use a leg drop as a finisher though. Pretty stupid. After the match, Conor does his own five count, mimicking Big E Langston of course. Can’t wait until these two clash, which seeing as Big E’s music just hit, will probably be sooner than I originally thought.

Big E Langston makes his way down the ramp with his NXT Championship, and stares down Conor on the apron. He enters the ring and hits the Big Ending on CJ Parker. What a prick. We go backstage to see Paige (!) talking to Dusty Rhodes, which may be the first time I’ve ever actually heard her speak. A lot different voice than I thought she would have. She complains to Dusty about how Summer attacked her, and that she is going to “rip her lips straight off of her face”. After Paige storms off, Sasha Banks approaches Dusty, and Dusty delivers her another secret admirer letter. The letter hints that he will reveal himself next week. I don’t like where this is going. We get a little video recap of the NXT Tournament at the Rumble Axxess where the winner, which would end up being the super exciting and not incredibly boring Bo Dallas, would get a spot in the Rumble. The video shows how every match went down, which was pretty cool to see considering they could have easily just shown Bo win.

After the video package, we go backstage to see Bo Dallas (belch) being confronted by his brother Bray Wyatt (yay!). Wyatt congratulates Bo on his Rumble appearance, but says that his fifteen minutes of fame is up. I hope he’s right. I hope they bring Wyatt up soon. He’s been hinting on Twitter that he would debut before WrestleMania, but you have to take things wrestlers say on Twitter with a grain of salt. We go to the ring where Bo Dallas and the way more talented Michael McGillicutty make their way to the ring to face the Wyatt Family, Erick Rowan and Luke Harper. Since British Ambition are in the finals, I would assume that the heels would win here. The match starts off with some slow grapples and frequent tags from Michael and Bo. The Wyatt Family takes control and starts to use the same strategy, which is making this match white slow. Watching Luke Harper at ringside makes me realize how good this guy is at playing his character. The way he stands, the look on his face, just all the little things he does just adds to his character so perfectly. After Wyatt distracts McGillcutty and gets ejected, Harper hits Michael with a devastating looking discus lariat, and Rowan pins the son of Mr. Perfect for the win. This match never really got going, but I’m interested to see who wins the NXT Tag Team Championships next week. English Ambition and the Wyatt Family are both great teams and it would make sense for either of them to win.

After the match, Bray Wyatt slides in the ring to hurt McGilliwhatshisface, but Bo Dallas intervenes. Wyatt puts his hand out to Dallas to shake, but Bo just stares him down. Wyatt leaves the ring, but the Famiy distracts Bo, and Bray slides back in and clotheslines him in the corner. He starts to dance with him as he limps motionless, and then hits a swinging reverse STO. Looks like we are getting a Rotunda family feud, which will be fine with me if Wyatt comes out on top. NXT wasn’t as strong in the wrestling department this week, but it built upon some angles and made next week’s show intriguing.

As usual, you can follow me on Twitter @SmarkInProgress, where I think I know better than the WWE Creative team.