NXT and Worlds Collide Recap Week of 4/14/19 - The Post-Pre-Show of TakeOver New York

I know this is a long time coming, but there's been stuff this week.

So it's the standard NXT After TakeOver we got this week where we get the pre-show matches that kicked the evening off for TakeOver New York, plus all the post-show video packages! Let's take a look at what went down on this week's broadcast!

As far as match content, first up was Candace LaRae vs Aliyah with Vanessa Borne. Now, the last time I remember seeing Candace perform on TV was when she took on Nikki Cross in the pre-show for TakeOver Wargames II and picked up a loss. For one of the most beloved performers in NXT, Candace does not get much in the way of TV time, but I have a feeling that's going to change soon. At least I hope so, because it's clear she needs a better work-rate. Her match against Aliyah was really nothing special, and I think that has to do with the fact there's nothing about Aliyah that has me excited as a performer or a personality. Same with Vanessa Borne. They look and act like they belong on a "Real Housewives" show rather than a sports entertainment promotion, and whether or not that's supposed to be part of their characters, they need the in-ring skills to hang with someone like Candace. Anyway, Candace almost had a bit of a botch as she cut it really close for her springboard moonsault finisher that still picked her up the win. Again, hopefully this will lead to more TV time for Candace and maybe a try at the NXT Women's belt since Shayna Baszler still holds it.

Then came Danny Burch vs Jaxson Ryker. I'm still not sure what direction they have, if any, for Danny. I know that Oney is competing on 205 Live, but I don't see them splitting these two up for too long. And as far as Forgotten Sons are concerned, I was kind of hoping we'd seen the last of them for a while, unless they're looking to rebrand Ryker as the "monster" of NXT now that Lars Sullivan is finally ready for prime time. I know that this is a total book-by-its-cover issue that I sometimes get with performers, but Ryker looks like he should be in prison or as a henchman in a Scott Adkins B-grade action film. I just hate the look of all the Forgotten Sons, and they're a wildly bland tag team. They seem to have X-Pac heat, and that doesn't bode well for them. Anyway, Burch had a decent showing against Ryker but thanks to outside interference by Cutler and Blake, Ryker got the upper hand and hit him with a powerbomb finisher for the win.

Can we talk about finishers for a bit? Good.

If there are two finishers that I'm really bored of, it's the spear or just about any variant of a powerbomb. You can call it what you want: Batista Bomb, Storm Zero, whatever. It's so overused as a finishing move. I get it, but it's just losing its impact because it seems to be the go-to finisher for so many performers. The only ones I really like right now are KO's Pop-Up Powerbomb,  the Tyler Driver '97, and my personal favorite variant, Sami's Blue Thunder Bomb (and that's just a signature). Even Kota Ibushi's Golden Star seems dull in comparison to the Kamigoye, and that's just a knee strike, but it looks so cool. So let's cool it on the powerbomb finishers for a while.

Then we had Street Profits vs Fabian Aichner and Marcel Barthel. If there's one tag team from NXT I can see pretty easily transitioning to the main roster, it's Street Profits. They have skills, charisma and are genuinely physically dazzling. Aichner and Barthel also have that "smash-mouth" style of a team like The Revival, but also can pull out the spots, particularly since Aichner was a cruiserweight before he bulked up. This was a really solid match with a lot of really fun spots that ended with Profits picking up the win, which is good, because they haven't really been in the win column lately and Aichner and Barthel have been working better at NXT UK.

So while the pre-show for TakeOver New York was kind of underwhelming, at least the main show was beyond exceptional. So there's that.

Now let's move over to the first broadcast of what I guess we should call Worlds Collide II where we have NXT alumni from Raw and Smackdown doing battle with people from NXT, UK, and 205 Live at Mania weekend Axxess. There's also a Women's roster battle and a Tag collision, whatever they want to call it, but those will be in the coming weeks so let's focus on this first round!

The first match from Sunday's broadcast was Kassius Ohno vs Aiden English, who took a break from commentary on 205 Live to compete as an NXT alum. This was a pretty short and sweet affair, and clearly Aiden has been taking some lessons from the high flyers on 205 Live as he hit a Tope Con Hilo on Ohno on the outside. But it was all for naught as Ohno hit the rolling elbow for the win. Say what you will about Ohno, but he's been working like crazy for almost the entire time I've been watching NXT to put over the other guy, even in victory.

Next up was Dominik Dijakovic vs Luke Harper (what the fuck is with the shortening of everyone's name when they don't need it?) where we saw Harper working babyface the whole time (which is really weird) and also finishing it up with the win over Dijakovic with the discus clothesline. There's a lot of reasons this doesn't make sense, but let's start with the most obvious: Harper is gone from WWE. Whether that was a long time coming or something where he just said "fuck it, I'm out", he's gone. And I know that these Axxess matches are just tiny house shows where people pay hundreds of dollars to just end up wandering over to watch, but why would you put Harper over Dijakovic? Dom clearly can do just about everything. He's the kind of wrestler I design when I'm playing the 2K games: big and muscular, but also extremely agile and can do the big spots. This is the kind of guy that, if he ends up being great in his promos could be a massive star not only in NXT but on the main roster as well.

Then we had our first Tag Collision when Kyle O'Reilly and Bobby Fish of Undisputed Era faced off against Killian Dane and Alexander Wolfe of Sanity. Now I don't know why the crowd was so fucking dead for this match because this was some awesome stuff. And it was only improved by the sheer presence of O'Reilly. He's just the fucking best when it comes to the comedy spots. He oozes the goofy alpha male shit in the backstage segments and on his walk up to the ring. But when he's in the ring, it's usually all business except for this match. He's hit with a power move by members of Sanity during the match, squares off against them, screams a massive battle cry... and then his legs turn to jelly and he falls backwards out of the ring. It doesn't read as funny as it looks, but good lord, this was my favorite part of this match. KOR and Fish eventually hit the Over/Under for the win, and of course beat down Sanity for a bit until Eric Young, who had been ringside, came in to fend them off. I guess this was also another farewell, because Alexander Wolfe has left WWE as well, but to much smaller fanfare than Harper since Sanity has been languishing in anonymity for the better part of a year on Smackdown. So RIP Sanity.

The main event of this broadcast was Roderick Strong vs Tyler Breeze. This was all Roddy pretty much throughout until Prince Pretty hit The Unprettier for the win. This was not a bad match, but again, the crowd was dead and this was clearly either a "gimme" win for Breeze or part of a deeper storyline that's been hinted at since TakeOver New York that Strong is starting to look like the odd man out of Undisputed Era. If it's the latter, I'm totally cool with that.

The biggest problem overall with Worlds Collide so far is that no one in the audience really seems to give a shit. There's no real mega star power that could attract people to this. At least the first Worlds Collide (which I was at, and I'm not going to let you forget it) during Royal Rumble weekend had people like Velveteen Dream and Adam Cole and Tyler Bate. Undisputed Era are awesome to watch, but without the anchor of Adam Cole, the crowd just isn't as interested. I'm interested because I love watching these guys, but it's a bummer that the house crowd just didn't really care.

Well, that's it for my wrap-up on last week's NXT and Sunday's first episode of Worlds Collide Part Deux! I will have my wrap-up of the Raw and Smackdown Superstar Shake-Up later today, so if you're keeping your eye on this space, check it out later! I'm going to be trying something a little different, so I hope you'll bear with me and let me know if you like the changes or if what I've already been doing works better! And my NXT wrap-up will come on Thursday. Promise!

Until next time, kids...

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