PWP Nation’s Eron Ramadanov reviews the latest episode of WWE NXT
Back again, with another review of WWE NXT. This week, they were in the CFE arena at the University of Central Florida, where we saw several promos and segments hyping the upcoming shows leading into NXT Takeover: Dallas.
This week’s show was headlined by Bayley defending her NXT Women’s Championship against the number one contender and her best friend, Carmella. We also saw some enhancement matches featuring “The Drifter” Elias Samson and Alexa Bliss. Overall, this show was above average and served its purpose, which is building up to the Dallas Takeover show during WrestleMania 32 weekend.
With that being said, let’s get into what we learned from this episode:
Apollo Crews = Mr. Roboto
Listen, I dig Apollo Crews. I think he’s a talented in-ring worker, with all the physical tools to be a major success for the WWE. But his promo abilities are just not good, to be blunt.
Generic and robotic, Crews, oddly, seems to be regressing from when he debuted in NXT. I wish I knew why.
Most of Crews’ promo woes come from his delivery of the lines he’s given, but there should be some blame aimed at the writers giving him this stuff. It sounds like it was ripped from a 1980’s Hulk Hogan promo. The hard-luck, naive babyface just doesn’t work anymore and it could spell death for Crews’ character and career.
This week, he stated that the next time we see Apollo Crews, he’ll see a new version; one we’ve never seen before. I hope that’s true. Hopefully we see one that can actually cut a good promo.
Asuka is a badass… again
For the second straight week, Asuka comes off like a complete and total badass.
Hitting the ring to save Carmella from an attack by Nia Jax and Eva Marie, Asuka cleared the ring without even raising a finger. After Jax and Marie stood down, Asuka stood toe-to-toe with Bayley, which resulted in the fans at the CFE arena to loose their freaking minds at the possibility of Bayley and Asuka for the NXT Women’s Championship at NXT Takeover: Dallas.
The NXT faithful love Bayley and don’t want to see her go to the main roster or lose the NXT Women’s Title, but I think people (including me) would like to see an Asuka title reign.
As for Asuka, I find it incredible that she has transitioned to the WWE style so smoothly, not only in the ring, but when it comes to her character, she screams legitimacy.
Raise a glass for Carmella
When she first debuted, if I would have told you that Carmella was going to be wrestling for the NXT Women’s Championship, you would have probably groaned and wished for someone else. But, that’s not the case. I mean, granted, when she won the battle royal to become the number one contender, people realistically knew that Carmella wasn’t going to win during this episode, but you how IWC fans can be.
Because Carmella isn’t an “Indy darling,” she has to go above and beyond to please the NXT universe. So, in this match, I believe Carmella really held her own and proved to me that she belongs in a squared circle.
Sometimes we can be hard are our less-favorites, which is unfair, but in this case, Carmella did a good job and held her own with arguably the best women’s wrestler in the world.
Thanks for reading, everyone.