WWE NXT Recap (on WWE.com)
July 26, 2011
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Report by: Gregory “Grash” Walek of Wrestleview.com
Tonight, NXT is in The City of Brotherly (And ECW) Love, Philadelphia.
Todd Grisham and William Regal are on commentary.
Matt Striker and Maryse are our hosts.
The show starts with a package explaining the feud between Tyson Kidd and Yoshi Tatsu. For those catching up, this is a feud which revolves around honor, respect, and the leg of an action figure.
“I said we are wild and young!”
We have a Necklace on a Pole match tonight. Raw will get revisited later tonight.
MATCH: Derrick Bateman vs. Titus O’Neil
Titus comes out alone to Hornswoggle’s Music. Bateman comes out in Rocky-USA Shorts to his own music. Bateman is pretending he’s pounding meat as he heads to the ring. The Rocky Shorts come off before Bateman gets in the ring and he is wearing his own tights. The bells rings and they lock up. Bateman starts on offense first, but Titus overpowers him quickly. He goes on the offense and gets a quick pin attempt. Titus continues to over powers Bateman. Regal says Titus at first got over based on Hornswoggle. But now he’s coming out alone and has to focus and improving. Bateman attempts a comeback, but is again overpowered by Titus’s strength. It leads to a pin attempt. Bateman kicks out. Again Bateman makes a recovery but, Titus throws him out. Bateman rolls out and walks around the ring. Darren Young comes out and slaps Bateman telling him “Do your Job, Take him [Titus] out.”
AD: WCW Nitro Collection
Back to the action, Titus is in control of the match. Darren Young is at ring side and has taken a corner man role for Bateman. Todd and Regal speculate that Darren and Bateman are teaming up to take out Titus. In the meanwhile Bateman has taken control, and goes for a pin attempt. Titus kicks out. Darren is giving advice to Bateman from ringside. Titus manages to break free of Bateman’s hold, but falls pray to Bateman pulling him into the ring post and goes onto offense using the ropes and post. The ref has to count for a break. Bateman uses a leg from on the apron that Darren has been using for weeks on Titus. The get back to the center of the ring and Bateman gets a lock on Titus. They fight to their feet. Bateman whips Titus into the corner, but eats an elbow. He recovers and Bateman goes to top rope, but misses as Titus swats him aside. Titus takes over on offense again. He gets a pin attempt. Bateman heads into the corner. Darren distracts Titus by holding his leg. Bateman takes the opportunity and it leads to the pin and the win.
Winner: Derrick Bateman
After the match, Darren young gets into the ring and raises Bateman’s hand.
We will revisit last night’s Raw.
AD: SummerSlam ad.
Did You Know: WWE loves social media.
BACKSTAGE
Hornswoggle is following a trail of green M&M’s. He finds a curtain with a note for him. AJ comes out with flowers and kisses him. Maryse shows up and says Hornswoggle found someone his own size. AJ ask what Maryse’s problem is. Maryse responds there’s no problem. The two of them are perfect for each other. They’re both trolls. AJ smacks Maryse with the flowers and Maryse falls back. Smiling to Hornswoggle, AJ gives the damaged bunch to Hornswoggle.
JTG ask what Vlad is doing planking on top of a vending machine. The bet between the two was to be a better Ganster, not Planker. JTG says he’s got one more week.
The Necklace on a Pole match is next. Tyson is out first.
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NECKLACE ON A POLE MATCH: Yoshi Tatsu vs. Tyson Kidd
Yoshi is out next. He holds his action figure up. Its bandaged up. Regal says that the leg on the pole is something different. Regal is aghast that the action figure is bandaged. The bell rings. The two circle the ring. Tyson throws Yoshi and goes for the leg. Yoshi beats him down. Yoshi goes for the legs but is stopped. They fight on till Yoshi gets a flying leg on Kidd. He goes for the leg. Kidd stops him. Kidd takes control of the match and proceeds to work on Yoshi to wear him down before going for the leg. Yoshi stops him and Kidd ends up on the shoulders of Yoshi. They both fall out of the ring. Kidd gets a drop on Yoshi on the outside of the ring. Todd reminds us there is no Count Outs in this match. Kidd has some red marks from chops from Yoshi. Yoshi is going wild on Kidd on the outside of the ring. Yoshi goes for a big leg drop using the steel steps, but Tyson drops down and Yoshi misses. Tyson is climbing the ring post the pole is on. He gets to the apron and kicks Yoshi down through the ropes. Tyson rolls out and jaw jacks with the crowd before tossing Yoshi back in. He beats on Yoshi in the corner, taunting him. The crowd is giving Tyson heat for it. Yoshi rolls out of the ring as Tyson goes for the leg. Yoshi climbs up with him. A strike battle begins. Yoshi pushes Kidd into the Announce table. Yoshi goes flying the other direction. We cut to a commercial.
AD: WWE All Stars Blue Danube AD – Oh Yea! (Cup of coffee in the big time)
Back to the action, Kidd has Yoshi on the ropes. Yoshi rolls out and Kidd goes after him. Regal says the Necklace is immaterial. It’s about competition and honor. Kid goes for the Leg, buy Yoshi stops him but loses control of the match, and Kid gets a drop over the ropes onto Yoshi. Tyson then sets up Yoshi in a submission hold using the ropes. Regal says the beauty about what is happening here is that this about draining the energy from Yoshi. Tyson again goes for the leg, Yoshi stops. They get back to fight and Yoshi gets a kick on Kidd. Regal and Todd say with that kick Yoshi has the opportunity to get the leg, He crawls to the leg and climbs the pole. He’s stopped by Kidd. Yoshi is dropped on his balls. Kidd now pulls him down and hangs him over the ropes. Regal is explaining that Kidd is using the ring as weapon. Yoshi manages to get back up. Kidd is right behind him. Yoshi goes for the Leg. Kidd in return pulls Yoshi down. After the two slam onto the matt, the ref checks Yoshi’s hand he has the leg!
Winner: Yoshi Tatsu
Regal says these two men just fought over a piece of plastic. He asks what if they were fighting over a title. Yoshi is Celebrating his win with his action figure leg with his hands up. Kidd grabs Yoshi and uses the ring post on his leg. He then drops Yoshi onto the on the announce table and rolls him into the ring to use the post again. It’s a figure four around the ring post. Todd says Kidd is trying to rip of the leg of the Real Yoshi. The refs break up the figure four. Kidd steps back and smiles at his work. We get a replay of the end of the match. We come back Yoshi is being helped back by the refs as Tyson is holding his arms up victorious. Regal is putting over how this is the future of the WWE right here and this is how it
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AD: Smackdown – HHH returns to Smackdown, in control of the WWE
Todd and Regal recap that Rey Mysterio won the WWE Title over the Miz but had to defend at the end of Raw to John Cena. A replay from last night Raw’s the WWE Championship match between Cena and Rey Mysterio Begins. A recap of this match can be found in Wrestleview’s Mike Tedesco’s Raw Recap. Cena would win the match and reclaim the WWE Title. Extreme’s Culture Personality plays over the pa System. Cena is Confused and looks around. The Tron is blank. Then from the back, CM Punk walks out. The Tron changes to a White CM Punk “Best in the World” background. Punk is wearing the WWE Title which He won at Money in the Bank. Cena can’t believe what he is seeing. As Punk walks up to him, Cena raises up his title. In return Punk raises his title. We have two champions in the WWE now. Cena leves the ring, unsure what is going on.
And that’s it. “Gig-gig-giga, That’s all folks”. The show is over. The steam is done.
Grash Says…
Okay five things happened tonight. I’ll hit them up in order.
1) Bateman and Darren Young are teaming up to take on Titus. This week, it leads to a win for Bateman over Titus. This makes sense because Bateman has come in heelish. So it’s the two heels ganging up on the Face.
2) We’ve found Hornswoggle’s Secret Admirer, and it’s AJ! AJ is the nerdy internet sweetheart whom has been recently been on Smackdown. She was also in Season 3 of NXT. She came in direct conflict with the force of nature that has been Maryse. Not only did she come into conflict with her, she came out on top tonight in the initial showdown. If Maryse is Godzilla, the AJ is our Lovable King Kong.
3) Kozlov now knows what he needs to do be gansta. Though the planking bit tonight was funny.
4) Yoshi and Kidd had a feel going into the Necklace on a Pole match that this would be the blow off. And with Yoshi winning The action figure leg back,you’d think so. However with Tyson’s beat down on Yoshi after the match tonight’s result feels more as an esculation. With the action figure out of the picture now, Tyson has now gone right to Yoshi. That was the point of the figure four on the ring post. So the feeling I have right now is there should be another match. And this would be an all out war.
I covered for Mr. V for his #128 Column of “The Desk of MR. V”. I went in more detail about what is MacGuffin. If Yoshi and Kidd go on to continue this feud, then the action figure leg would be the example of a MacGuffin that did not matter beyond lighting the fire. If you listen to Regal tonight, he laid a lot of the ground work on this as well. Speaking of Commentary, huge kudos to Todd and Regal for excellent work tonight on Commentary giving the basics to what was going on and why it was important. You two pushed this match higher up and has probably made my top 10 of the year.
5) We ended NXT tonight again with video from Raw. There are two things that are going on here that I need to address. The first topic is the show format. NXT has shifted in its format again, and this is thr forth we’ve had. We had the Pre-Wrestlemania which was more akin to older seasons of NXT. The Post Wrestlemania Show which found NXT evolve into a Smackdown light type of show. The third shift was the of eliminations of Rookies. The fourth shift is now the Bateman portion. We’ve gone several weeks now with Bateman, Titus, and Young in the mix. No Elimination, and another two weeks guaranteed as no elimination was announced.
The other part of this shift in format comes from the fact that NXT is now being used to keep all of the fans inline with the Punk-Cena Angle that is on going. There’s nothing else you can say but this angle has become so important and encompassing to the entire WWE. It needs this extra time as we progress each week, as the foundation of which the WWE is built upon shifts in dramatic fashion. It is a foundation that is still rocking and will continue to do so for weeks on end. Think of this in the same vein as Earthquakes. One good quake can produce a much larger one. And all large quakes produce shocks of significant power after it. The infamous Shoot Promo from Punk is our first quake. Our Massive quake which we are still seeing aftershocks from is the replacement of Vince for HHH as the Ultimate Authority Figure in the WWE. Getting back to last night’s Raw, the reason the show needed to be recapped as it did tonight on NXT is that Cena regained the WWE Title only to have Punk Return. And Punk returns as the WWE Champion as well. In short, we have two Champions, both whom have legitimate claims to being the Champion. (And a edit war across several Wikipedia pages.)