The SmarK Rant–NXT Catchup time!

The SmarK Rant – NXT Catchup

OK, enough people have bugged me for my thoughts on these two matches that I figured I’d just review them and be done with it. So here’s the tag title match from the 07.11.18 show and then the NXT title match from the 07.25.18 show.

NXT tag titles: Trent Seven & Tyler Bate v. Roderick Strong & Kyle O’Reilly

Am I the only one who thinks that Strong is a pretty significant upgrade over Bobby Fish and hopes they keep them as a team on a permanent basis? Big brawl at the bell and the Era beats them down in the corner, but the Brits slam Undisputed Era onto each other and chase them out of the ring. The crowd is going REALLY heavy on the dueling chant as they fight on the floor and Trent trades chops with Strong. And then Roderick runs him into the post and then drops him onto the stairs with a kneecrusher in a nasty spot. Back in, O’Reilly immediately goes after the injured knee and kneebars him, and Strong pulls the knee brace off to further stomp on it. O’Reilly puts him in a reverse deathlock and twirls his metaphorical moustache, then goes to a heel hook to keep him in the corner. Strong cranks on the knee and the crowd just won’t let up with the chants. Kyle smashes the knee some more, but Seven rolls him up for two and fights back on Strong, kicking him into the railing. Kyle charges as well, but Trent can’t quite crawl to the corner. He dives for the tag, but then O’Reilly yanks Bate off the apron in a spectacularly timed spot. That was also shot amazingly because you thought he was making the tag and didn’t see O’Reilly doing the deed until after Bate was taken out.

Seven fights back again, but O’Reilly takes out Bate and hooks the heel again. This time, Seven fights out and makes the hot tag to Bate, who decides to kick as much ass as possible on his own. Flying elbow and standing shooting star gets two on Strong. O’Reilly charges in and grabs the choke sleeper, but Bate rams him into the corner to break and suplexes Strong into him. Then we get the most awesome spot ever, Bate doing a Giant Swing on Strong while holding O’Reilly in an airplane spin! And then he drops them onto each other and gets two. Bate hits O’Reilly with the rolling kick, but Strong hits him with an enzuigiri from behind, so Bate powerbombs him for two. Bate tosses O’Reilly and wants to tag, but Seven is still too injured, so Tyler continues to go it alone, and immediately walks into a backbreaker from Strong. O’Reilly follows with the low kick for two, and a brainbuster for two. Bate fights them off, but the Era double-teams him and dropkicks Bate into his own corner. Seven tags himself in and fights valiantly with a suplex on O’Reilly and a short lariat on Strong for two. He tries the torture rack, but the knee collapses and Strong puts him in a Strong Clutch and Bate makes the save. Seven crawls for the corner again, but O’Reilly dives onto the knee with a vicious kneedrop, heel hooks him again, and Trent is fucked. He fights for the tag, but O’Reilly yanks him back to the middle while Seven continues fighting and kicking O’Reilly in the face to finally break. O’Reilly positions himself between Seven and Bate to cut off the tag, then GLARES at Bate on the apron and locks in another kneebar on Seven like a complete fucking asshole. Seven still won’t tap, so Bate finally throws in the towel to save his partner from dying because he already used his one save (which is the “secret rule” in NXT).

I guess technically he could have made the save and kept the titles by DQ, but then how can you call yourself a man after that? And so the Era regains the tag titles at 17:32 like complete assholes, the only way they should. Fantastic drama and selling from Seven, giving us the best match in the history of the NXT weekly show. I love me some tag team wrestling and this was a clinic. *****

Can we top that one? Let’s move to this week’s show and find out!

NXT title: Aleister Black v. Tomasso Ciampa

I love that Ciampa is such a prick that he inspires the smart-mark nightmare crowd at Full Sail to just outright boo the guy in the most visceral reaction that a wrestling fan can revert to. No cutesy “cool heel” stuff or deep down respect required. Ciampa goes for the arm to start, but Black takes him down by the leg and goes to a facelock. Black tries an armdrag and Ciampa reverses into an Oklahoma roll for two, however. Black with a headlock and he gets a small package out of nowhere for two and a rollup for two, then takes him down with an armbar. Ciampa runs away from Black Mass and almost catches him with the draping DDT on the way back in, so Black yanks him out and beats on him outside with stiff kicks. Back in, Ciampa catches him with a cheapshot on the way in, but Black levels him with the high kick and boots him to the floor. He follows with a dive, but fakes Ciampa out instead. Back in, Black gets another high kick, but tries a quebrada and gets DUMPED by Ciampa and then run into the stairs. That was a cool spot from Ciampa because rather than running in the opposite direction off an irish whip, he ran WITH Black and stayed right behind him while Black tried the springboard.

Back in, Ciampa takes over with a low dropkick for two and goes to work on the back with the abdominal stretch. Ciampa would like to stress that HE HAS UNTIL FIVE, REFEREE. That’s gimmick infringement. Ciampa with the cloverleaf, but Black makes the ropes. They fight on the apron and Black throws more kicks out there, but Ciampa tries to haul him in for a superplex and Black escapes and counters a sunset flip for two. They collide for the double down. Black fights back with a legsweep and more kicks, into the quebrada that he missed the first time, which gets two. Black fights from the apron with more kicks and beats Ciampa down in the ring, finishing with a kneelift for two. Black gives him the quality trash talk and kills him with more kicks in the corner, so Ciampa bails and yanks Black to the apron (THE HARDEST PART OF THE RING!) and gets two. Black blocks a running knee, but Ciampa hits him with the lariat for two, then exposes the bare knee, but Black catches him with his own knee strike first for two. Black calls for Black Mass, but Ciampa rolls him up for two. Black keeps coming with the flying knee into a german suplex for two, and Ciampa escapes to the floor again. This time, Black follows with a dive for real, but misses and allows Ciampa to throw him into a cameraman.

Back in, Ciampa hits him with a crutch behind the ref’s back and gets two. So he goes with the draping DDT, but Black dumps him to the floor again and follows with the dive again, which hits this time. Ciampa catches him with the DDT on the way back in, however, and that gets two. Well this match is something to behold. Next dirty trick from Ciampa: Pulling up the mats outside. He hauls Black to the apron to set up the draping DDT onto the concrete, but the ref stops him and ends up taking the bump onto the concrete himself. No wonder Drake Younger got the gig for this match. Black hits Black Mass and we’ve got no ref, so Ciampa thumbs him in the eye while he’s got a clear line. This brings Johnny Gargano into the ring to save, but he accidentally hits Black with the belt, and Ciampa nails Black with the butterfly piledriver to win the NXT title at 22:18 and you have never SEEN a more bitterly angry crowd reaction outside of maybe Sgt. Slaughter winning the WWF title from Ultimate Warrior. And then Ciampa makes the ref strap the belt on him to really rub salt into the wounds. WHAT A HEEL. Part of me wants Ciampa to reign forever while the Full Sail crowd gets madder and madder, but most of me wants Gargano to get his shit straight and win the belt at Takeover. Either way works, really. ****3/4

Hell of a night of wrestling! Can’t go wrong with either match, really. I think the tag title match was technically better, but the NXT title match obviously was more emotionally invested for me.