Well, this was definitely a pretty packed week for the Black and Gold brands. We had a lot of big matchups, some good story advancement toward the respective TakeOver shows for both the FLA and the UK, and some more good looks at some new talent... basically the stuff that NXT is supposed to be doing.
So let's kick it off with the goings-on at Full Sail!
First up was Jordan Myles vs Angel Garza in the first semi-final matchup of the Breakout tourney. Honestly, this was a really good match, but I knew going in who was going to win and the sad part to me was that it wasn't Garza. There's always that great talent you know could be a top heel without saying a word and just by his in-ring work alone, and that is Garza through and through. If we're going to be honest, Myles seems like Apollo Crews 2.0; someone who can really shine in the right kind of match, but if he doesn't have a little bit of the "I'm gonna have fun in this match, but I'mma fuck you up as well" attitude that Crews doesn't have at all, the former ACH isn't going to be one of the top guys for NXT. Garza has that about him and was just a lot more interesting to watch. I can't complain about the booking, because Garza has shown us a lot and he's definitely going to get his spot sooner rather than later. I'll tell you, I've been having a terrific time watching the Breakout tournament because these competitors have all been interesting and I'm really looking forward to seeing who of the original 8 competitors actually is the breakout star. That being said, Myles won in a way that was really surprising and either did him a tremendous favor or didn't do him any favors, and that was using a Northern Lights suplex into a pinning predicament and getting the three count. I'm of two minds about that. Part of me always thinks that the Northern Lights pin is a transitional move before an actual pinfall because when the hell was the last time someone won with a Northern Lights? It makes it almost seem like they called an audible during the match. But the way this could actually be beneficial for Myles is that maybe he's that strong that he can win using a Northern Lights when no one else could! Who knows?
It was also a big week for the women in NXT all over the brand as there were three matches in varying degrees of importance and actual quality. The two that were on NXT were important, and we'll get to the NXT UK match later. But first, let's talk about Bianca Belair vs Xia Li. This was basically a glorified squash that showed that Belair definitely is one of the best physical performers in all of WWE, but just doesn't have that "it" factor that is so essential to the best of the superstars. I've had an issue with Belair for a while because her promos haven't really been good and her character is a little too stiff. When she's in the ring, though, all eyes are on her because she's really awesome. She basically killed Li, with Li getting in a short flurry of offense but was quickly halted and got the K.O.D. for the fall. It's the right position for both competitors to be in right now because while Li is not exactly ready for a prime spot yet, she's on her way, and Belair is so close to being headliner material but just needs to tighten the non-ring stuff because her in-ring stuff is seriously incredible.
We'll get to the second Women's match in a moment, but we absolutely need to talk about Velveteen Dream's promo. As you know, if you've been a reader of this column, I am always for queering up anything in WWE (unless it's queer-baiting, like the "more than a partner" thing they seem to be hinting at between openly gay Sonya Deville and the straight Mandy Rose on the main roster), and Velveteen Dream's pansexual persona just makes me happy. And when he uses that in his promos especially in reference to his rivals, it just fucking works. And with him talking about Roderick Strong, it works even moreso with intensifying the rivalry. The whole line about Roddy being "too short to ride this ride" was just magic. I'm dying to know how much of his stuff is scripted and what he actually improvises. Either way, his character is perfect. Roddy coming out to rebut Dream and saying that Dream is scared to face him... that's all just window dressing/place-setting to the big reveal. Because while Roddy is doing his thing, Pete Fucking Dunne comes out. Of course, Dunne isn't a man of many words so he just gets in there with the two of them, Strong points a finger at him and everyone should know by now that you should literally just put your hands in your pockets when Dunne comes at you because the first thing Dunne did was grab that finger and wishboned Roddy's hand. Of course, their rivalry goes way back to that magical night at TakeOver New Orleans in 2018 so there's a lot of bad blood between them anyway. But Dunne showed some respect to Dream by not attacking him and rather just eyed the North American belt up and down and left the ring. Backstage a little later, things got even more hilarious as Roddy talked to Mr. Regal about Dunne being there, and Regal made the match for the NA title at TakeOver Toronto a triple threat and then the best moment of the night happened: Roddy, like a petulant child, screamed at Regal, "This is favoritism!" to which Regal smiled, nodded and simply said, "Yes!" and I laughed my ass off. Very few things that involve Regal make me happier than watching him spank members of the Undisputed Era since Regal is a babyface GM and often times, Undisputed Era are chicken shit-heels. and they deserve a spanking every now and then. This does beg the question of why Pete Dunne is back in NXT "Prime" and not competing in NXT UK, but he could honestly use some cooling off over there. He was UK champion for 600+ days? Yeah, he can certainly come back to Full Sail for a little while and put together what is likely to be the sleeper match of the evening.
Then came the second of the women's matches of the evening which was Kacy Catanzaro facing off against full Sith Lord Io Shirai. I am generally not one to comment much on the sexiness of anyone in wrestling, but Io's new look... damn. Even The Manager sitting next to me looked at her entrance and new gear and look, and was like, "She looks so goddamn hot". Moving on, Shirai came out of the gate quickly and just shotgun drop-kicked Kacy like she was a piece of cardboard (one net positive regarding Kacy's real life relationship with Ricochet is that he must have taught her how to sell really well), but that was about it for that match as Candace LeRae came charging out and started beating the hell out of Io, tossing her out of the ring and going after her with a chair. Shirai fled before she had to take a shot, but it's clear that this is heading for something much bigger. But the real question is who is going to benefit? It seems that Candace has been stuck in a holding pattern for a while now, or being used as a prop for getting someone else over. In fairness to Candace, she's been in the indies for quite some time, so she might be one of the people the locker room looks up to, and she's just been satisfied working as the person that ends up as the supporting character rather than the star player. But this should be her breakout role here regarding her rivalry with Shirai. Whether this ends up taking the place of the traditional men's grudge match at a TakeOver or just ends up being a longer story that ends up culminating at a different future TakeOver, I just want to have Candace end up where she deserves and that's a main event player. And I'm fascinated to see where they take Shirai from here. Whether or not she ends up turning back to the light seems immaterial; I just want to see this version of her as long as possible because it's really really fun.
We were also treated to some taped segments from both Johnny Gargano and Adam Cole laying out their individual stipulations for the first and second falls of Gargano/Cole III, and each of them will be their own undoing and I love it. Gargano came on first and wanted a Street Fight because that's a style of match he's apparently come to love, although I don't understand why because he lost to Ciampa at TakeOver Chicago in a Street Fight match. On the other end, Cole challenged him to a simple "wrestling" match, because he wants to take the moniker of "Johnny Wrestling" away from Gargano. Cole's stipulation works much better for me on two different levels: first is that he's going to lose because his overconfidence is going to be his undoing. Second, though, is where things get deeper from an existential standpoint. I don't mean to wax philosophical here, but what Cole is looking to do here is to take away the one thing that makes Johnny who he is and that's fascinating. It's like chopping off Ricochet's legs; Johnny Gargano is Johnny Wrestling, but if someone were to beat him in a pure "wrestling" match, that part of his identity is gone. So who is Johnny Gargano if he's not Johnny Wrestling? A question we'll get to answer after that match.
We also got another moment of Mia Yim dealing out her "vigilante justice" to Jessamyn Duke at the PC as she bounced Duke off her locker. Again, like with the attack last week on Marina Shafir, if this all started with Shayna Baszler siccing her attack dogs (horses?) on her prior to their eventual match at TakeOver Toronto, this would feel totally deserved. But right now, it just seems like Yim is beating the shit out of the Horsewomen for no other reason other than their association with Baszler. Knowing what they've done in the past, it makes sense so it's not like this exists in a complete vacuum, but a preemptive strike on them seems to make it more likely that they will interfere in some way. And honestly, it just makes Yim seem more heelish than it should.
Finally, we wrapped it up with Keith Lee taking on Damian Priest. This was a much more effective coming out party for Priest because obviously he seemed kind of heelish before, but his victories were clean. Here they rubbed a little stank on it, and it cleared up my one major concern: will a loss to Priest hurt Lee in any way? Because while Lee lost this match, he lost it dirty. All it took was grabbing the ref and hitting a low blow on the big man and then following that up with The Reckoning for the pinfall. This was a really fun match. First of all, Keith Lee is just awesome. That legit martial arts movie stuff that he and Priest pulled out at the beginning of the match was fucking great even if it lasted for about 1.6 seconds. There were actual quick blocks and dodged sweep kicks and it was just so fun. And Priest hitting a Falcon Arrow on Lee made me happy for two reasons. A: it actually played to Priest's whole "archer" thing he's got going and B: getting Keith Lee up and over your shoulders is a herculean feat. This was the most fun I've had watching Priest so far and Lee has definitely been around long enough to know he needed to put Priest over here, but the booking was smart enough to not have Lee lose clean. His frustrations with clearly being over with the crowd but due to all the ebbing and flowing he's had thanks to injury or other storylines taking up time is going to be the culmination of wherever he's going from here. I'd love to see a badass Lee finding Priest at the PC and shoving his head into a locker and slamming it over and over because that's deserved after this match's ending. This is the kind of match that NXT TV does so well when they need to: put the losing competitor over because they still looked great in the match. Priest's mileage may vary since he has yet to cut a promo, but Lee, who has solid promo skills and a tremendously fun in-ring style, does indeed seem limitless as far as NXT is concerned.
Then we move back to the seemingly endless Download Festival in Jolly Old England for some solid NXT UK action!
The show started out with the grudge match between former buddies Kenny Williams and Noam Dar. I was frankly kind of shocked that the crowd was kind of dead for this one, but this may have been better for us at home understanding the story of why these two were fighting when last week's ep had Noam grinding The Lucky One's face in the mud during a outdoor promo. Kenny is one of those guys whose overall style just works for me on a number of levels, much in a similar fashion to Mark Andrews; he can grapple and he can do the high-flyer stuff. Noam is more speed/strong style with a lot of kicks and elbows and that works for him really well so this was a good pairing of a match. It's always a little weird when you have an ending that relates to a piece of gear being removed during a match, but that's exactly what happened here when Noam started to run out of ideas of how to put Kenny away but ended up with one of Kenny's Jordans in his hand and he threw it out out the ring, distracting the ref and hit the low-blow following with the Nova Roller for the pinfall. Again, this was one of those fast-paced, reversal-heavy matches with some really fun spots but also extended the story between these two. This is just the end of round one for these two, I'm hoping, and that we have more in the future.
Then came the backstage promo with Zack Gibson and James Drake being interrupted during their workout, and I gotta tell you, Zack Gibson is quickly becoming one of my favorite heels in the biz. He clearly relishes being hated, but unlike certain other bald assholes on Raw who love the cheap heat, Gibson can actually be fun with his heat. He can cut clever promos that don't feel scripted or stilted, and they always make me laugh with how cocky he is and always boasting about being a "locker room leader". He just makes it work, and I'm really loving him for it.
Next up was the big six-woman tag match with babyfaces Xia Brookside, Piper Niven and Toni Storm vs heels Jinny, Jazzy Gabert and Kay Lee Ray. This is one of those matches that is meant to send a clear message, and my main issue with this match is that it really didn't. It ended in exactly the same way that the previous match that Jinny had with Xia; Jazzy got involved and allowed Jinny to get the win over Brookside. Honestly, the booking up until this point made sense. Jazzy or Kay would get one over on Brookside and Jinny would tag herself in and try to finish her off; Piper and Jazzy had some fun moments facing off, and Kay and Toni squared off a few times, but to wrap it up with nothing really serious going down between Kay and Toni, and an only very brief exchange between Piper and Jazzy, this just didn't really shine a light on anyone. We already know that Jinny can only beat Xia via outside interference, but we don't need that again because we just saw it. And I can only imagine what the crowd was thinking as well, because it's very likely that they just saw the Xia/Jinny match from last week taped just an hour or so before, so this match felt like a real misstep.
Then we got our main event, which was WALTER vs Trent Seven in a non-title big-time grudge match and if you enjoy watching a massive Austrian just fucking destroy a big, bearded Englishman while the Austrian's protofascist pals stand beside the ring and watch, then this is the match for you. Here's the thing about this match: I understood why they booked it this way and it told a solid story, but between watching this match and writing about it, I rewatched the brilliant Jeremy Saulnier thriller/horror film "Green Room" (it's about a punk band who end up under siege in a white supremacist bar in rural Oregon; it's on Netflix. Watch it, but maybe don't eat first). And I'm starting to think that the idea and presentation of Imperium is maybe a little bit more insidious than it should be. When Wolfe, Aichner and Barthel came out to the ring and stood barring the way to the ring as if they were on guard, it just looked a little too... well, it was uncomfortable to look at. Just visually, it reminded me of all the neo-Nazi rallies I've seen photos of, and as much as NXT's creative division might think, "well, they just look like bad asses", it's starting to become unpleasant to watch. I'm not saying that anyone in this stable or in Creative subscribe to fascist ideals or support white supremacy, but the visual cues are starting to look... not great. I don't have another way that I can put it. Let me stress again that my reviewing of this may likely be a bit colored by watching "Green Room", but it's just starting to make me not want to look and that's not the way I want to feel about any heel faction.
I know that we all love NXT because it tends to have more sophisticated and character-based storytelling and that's wonderful; it's a great little gift to get every week and it renews my faith and rewards my investment and love by loving me back. But Imperium, while not necessarily being a bridge too far, is starting to seem kind of actually scary. Not Bray Wyatt-scary, but full-on sociopolitically frightening. Again, this is purely from a visual standpoint and I don't like harping on it, but it's legit starting to creep me out and not in the way they want me to be creeped out. I know that this may seem a little too "woke", but I can't be alone in this.
Okay, well, that ended on a much weirder note than I intended it to. Anyway, I'll be back next week with more coverage of all things from the Black and Gold brand, so stay tuned because more good stuff is coming up! And oh, yeah, the G1 Climax is fucking great. You should watch as much as you can. The match that was on AXS TV last week between Okada and Ospreay was phenomenal. Will is going to go over Okada one of these days, but damn if they always seem to make it look very evenly contested. Since Bea Priestley is currently working over in AEW, I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see Will join her there in the not-too-distant future. I know that Will just moved to Japan, but I could easily see him going to AEW when his contract is up, and I want to see Will become an even bigger star, but not a WWE guy.
Until next time, kids...
So let's kick it off with the goings-on at Full Sail!
First up was Jordan Myles vs Angel Garza in the first semi-final matchup of the Breakout tourney. Honestly, this was a really good match, but I knew going in who was going to win and the sad part to me was that it wasn't Garza. There's always that great talent you know could be a top heel without saying a word and just by his in-ring work alone, and that is Garza through and through. If we're going to be honest, Myles seems like Apollo Crews 2.0; someone who can really shine in the right kind of match, but if he doesn't have a little bit of the "I'm gonna have fun in this match, but I'mma fuck you up as well" attitude that Crews doesn't have at all, the former ACH isn't going to be one of the top guys for NXT. Garza has that about him and was just a lot more interesting to watch. I can't complain about the booking, because Garza has shown us a lot and he's definitely going to get his spot sooner rather than later. I'll tell you, I've been having a terrific time watching the Breakout tournament because these competitors have all been interesting and I'm really looking forward to seeing who of the original 8 competitors actually is the breakout star. That being said, Myles won in a way that was really surprising and either did him a tremendous favor or didn't do him any favors, and that was using a Northern Lights suplex into a pinning predicament and getting the three count. I'm of two minds about that. Part of me always thinks that the Northern Lights pin is a transitional move before an actual pinfall because when the hell was the last time someone won with a Northern Lights? It makes it almost seem like they called an audible during the match. But the way this could actually be beneficial for Myles is that maybe he's that strong that he can win using a Northern Lights when no one else could! Who knows?
It was also a big week for the women in NXT all over the brand as there were three matches in varying degrees of importance and actual quality. The two that were on NXT were important, and we'll get to the NXT UK match later. But first, let's talk about Bianca Belair vs Xia Li. This was basically a glorified squash that showed that Belair definitely is one of the best physical performers in all of WWE, but just doesn't have that "it" factor that is so essential to the best of the superstars. I've had an issue with Belair for a while because her promos haven't really been good and her character is a little too stiff. When she's in the ring, though, all eyes are on her because she's really awesome. She basically killed Li, with Li getting in a short flurry of offense but was quickly halted and got the K.O.D. for the fall. It's the right position for both competitors to be in right now because while Li is not exactly ready for a prime spot yet, she's on her way, and Belair is so close to being headliner material but just needs to tighten the non-ring stuff because her in-ring stuff is seriously incredible.
We'll get to the second Women's match in a moment, but we absolutely need to talk about Velveteen Dream's promo. As you know, if you've been a reader of this column, I am always for queering up anything in WWE (unless it's queer-baiting, like the "more than a partner" thing they seem to be hinting at between openly gay Sonya Deville and the straight Mandy Rose on the main roster), and Velveteen Dream's pansexual persona just makes me happy. And when he uses that in his promos especially in reference to his rivals, it just fucking works. And with him talking about Roderick Strong, it works even moreso with intensifying the rivalry. The whole line about Roddy being "too short to ride this ride" was just magic. I'm dying to know how much of his stuff is scripted and what he actually improvises. Either way, his character is perfect. Roddy coming out to rebut Dream and saying that Dream is scared to face him... that's all just window dressing/place-setting to the big reveal. Because while Roddy is doing his thing, Pete Fucking Dunne comes out. Of course, Dunne isn't a man of many words so he just gets in there with the two of them, Strong points a finger at him and everyone should know by now that you should literally just put your hands in your pockets when Dunne comes at you because the first thing Dunne did was grab that finger and wishboned Roddy's hand. Of course, their rivalry goes way back to that magical night at TakeOver New Orleans in 2018 so there's a lot of bad blood between them anyway. But Dunne showed some respect to Dream by not attacking him and rather just eyed the North American belt up and down and left the ring. Backstage a little later, things got even more hilarious as Roddy talked to Mr. Regal about Dunne being there, and Regal made the match for the NA title at TakeOver Toronto a triple threat and then the best moment of the night happened: Roddy, like a petulant child, screamed at Regal, "This is favoritism!" to which Regal smiled, nodded and simply said, "Yes!" and I laughed my ass off. Very few things that involve Regal make me happier than watching him spank members of the Undisputed Era since Regal is a babyface GM and often times, Undisputed Era are chicken shit-heels. and they deserve a spanking every now and then. This does beg the question of why Pete Dunne is back in NXT "Prime" and not competing in NXT UK, but he could honestly use some cooling off over there. He was UK champion for 600+ days? Yeah, he can certainly come back to Full Sail for a little while and put together what is likely to be the sleeper match of the evening.
Then came the second of the women's matches of the evening which was Kacy Catanzaro facing off against full Sith Lord Io Shirai. I am generally not one to comment much on the sexiness of anyone in wrestling, but Io's new look... damn. Even The Manager sitting next to me looked at her entrance and new gear and look, and was like, "She looks so goddamn hot". Moving on, Shirai came out of the gate quickly and just shotgun drop-kicked Kacy like she was a piece of cardboard (one net positive regarding Kacy's real life relationship with Ricochet is that he must have taught her how to sell really well), but that was about it for that match as Candace LeRae came charging out and started beating the hell out of Io, tossing her out of the ring and going after her with a chair. Shirai fled before she had to take a shot, but it's clear that this is heading for something much bigger. But the real question is who is going to benefit? It seems that Candace has been stuck in a holding pattern for a while now, or being used as a prop for getting someone else over. In fairness to Candace, she's been in the indies for quite some time, so she might be one of the people the locker room looks up to, and she's just been satisfied working as the person that ends up as the supporting character rather than the star player. But this should be her breakout role here regarding her rivalry with Shirai. Whether this ends up taking the place of the traditional men's grudge match at a TakeOver or just ends up being a longer story that ends up culminating at a different future TakeOver, I just want to have Candace end up where she deserves and that's a main event player. And I'm fascinated to see where they take Shirai from here. Whether or not she ends up turning back to the light seems immaterial; I just want to see this version of her as long as possible because it's really really fun.
We were also treated to some taped segments from both Johnny Gargano and Adam Cole laying out their individual stipulations for the first and second falls of Gargano/Cole III, and each of them will be their own undoing and I love it. Gargano came on first and wanted a Street Fight because that's a style of match he's apparently come to love, although I don't understand why because he lost to Ciampa at TakeOver Chicago in a Street Fight match. On the other end, Cole challenged him to a simple "wrestling" match, because he wants to take the moniker of "Johnny Wrestling" away from Gargano. Cole's stipulation works much better for me on two different levels: first is that he's going to lose because his overconfidence is going to be his undoing. Second, though, is where things get deeper from an existential standpoint. I don't mean to wax philosophical here, but what Cole is looking to do here is to take away the one thing that makes Johnny who he is and that's fascinating. It's like chopping off Ricochet's legs; Johnny Gargano is Johnny Wrestling, but if someone were to beat him in a pure "wrestling" match, that part of his identity is gone. So who is Johnny Gargano if he's not Johnny Wrestling? A question we'll get to answer after that match.
We also got another moment of Mia Yim dealing out her "vigilante justice" to Jessamyn Duke at the PC as she bounced Duke off her locker. Again, like with the attack last week on Marina Shafir, if this all started with Shayna Baszler siccing her attack dogs (horses?) on her prior to their eventual match at TakeOver Toronto, this would feel totally deserved. But right now, it just seems like Yim is beating the shit out of the Horsewomen for no other reason other than their association with Baszler. Knowing what they've done in the past, it makes sense so it's not like this exists in a complete vacuum, but a preemptive strike on them seems to make it more likely that they will interfere in some way. And honestly, it just makes Yim seem more heelish than it should.
Finally, we wrapped it up with Keith Lee taking on Damian Priest. This was a much more effective coming out party for Priest because obviously he seemed kind of heelish before, but his victories were clean. Here they rubbed a little stank on it, and it cleared up my one major concern: will a loss to Priest hurt Lee in any way? Because while Lee lost this match, he lost it dirty. All it took was grabbing the ref and hitting a low blow on the big man and then following that up with The Reckoning for the pinfall. This was a really fun match. First of all, Keith Lee is just awesome. That legit martial arts movie stuff that he and Priest pulled out at the beginning of the match was fucking great even if it lasted for about 1.6 seconds. There were actual quick blocks and dodged sweep kicks and it was just so fun. And Priest hitting a Falcon Arrow on Lee made me happy for two reasons. A: it actually played to Priest's whole "archer" thing he's got going and B: getting Keith Lee up and over your shoulders is a herculean feat. This was the most fun I've had watching Priest so far and Lee has definitely been around long enough to know he needed to put Priest over here, but the booking was smart enough to not have Lee lose clean. His frustrations with clearly being over with the crowd but due to all the ebbing and flowing he's had thanks to injury or other storylines taking up time is going to be the culmination of wherever he's going from here. I'd love to see a badass Lee finding Priest at the PC and shoving his head into a locker and slamming it over and over because that's deserved after this match's ending. This is the kind of match that NXT TV does so well when they need to: put the losing competitor over because they still looked great in the match. Priest's mileage may vary since he has yet to cut a promo, but Lee, who has solid promo skills and a tremendously fun in-ring style, does indeed seem limitless as far as NXT is concerned.
Then we move back to the seemingly endless Download Festival in Jolly Old England for some solid NXT UK action!
The show started out with the grudge match between former buddies Kenny Williams and Noam Dar. I was frankly kind of shocked that the crowd was kind of dead for this one, but this may have been better for us at home understanding the story of why these two were fighting when last week's ep had Noam grinding The Lucky One's face in the mud during a outdoor promo. Kenny is one of those guys whose overall style just works for me on a number of levels, much in a similar fashion to Mark Andrews; he can grapple and he can do the high-flyer stuff. Noam is more speed/strong style with a lot of kicks and elbows and that works for him really well so this was a good pairing of a match. It's always a little weird when you have an ending that relates to a piece of gear being removed during a match, but that's exactly what happened here when Noam started to run out of ideas of how to put Kenny away but ended up with one of Kenny's Jordans in his hand and he threw it out out the ring, distracting the ref and hit the low-blow following with the Nova Roller for the pinfall. Again, this was one of those fast-paced, reversal-heavy matches with some really fun spots but also extended the story between these two. This is just the end of round one for these two, I'm hoping, and that we have more in the future.
Then came the backstage promo with Zack Gibson and James Drake being interrupted during their workout, and I gotta tell you, Zack Gibson is quickly becoming one of my favorite heels in the biz. He clearly relishes being hated, but unlike certain other bald assholes on Raw who love the cheap heat, Gibson can actually be fun with his heat. He can cut clever promos that don't feel scripted or stilted, and they always make me laugh with how cocky he is and always boasting about being a "locker room leader". He just makes it work, and I'm really loving him for it.
Next up was the big six-woman tag match with babyfaces Xia Brookside, Piper Niven and Toni Storm vs heels Jinny, Jazzy Gabert and Kay Lee Ray. This is one of those matches that is meant to send a clear message, and my main issue with this match is that it really didn't. It ended in exactly the same way that the previous match that Jinny had with Xia; Jazzy got involved and allowed Jinny to get the win over Brookside. Honestly, the booking up until this point made sense. Jazzy or Kay would get one over on Brookside and Jinny would tag herself in and try to finish her off; Piper and Jazzy had some fun moments facing off, and Kay and Toni squared off a few times, but to wrap it up with nothing really serious going down between Kay and Toni, and an only very brief exchange between Piper and Jazzy, this just didn't really shine a light on anyone. We already know that Jinny can only beat Xia via outside interference, but we don't need that again because we just saw it. And I can only imagine what the crowd was thinking as well, because it's very likely that they just saw the Xia/Jinny match from last week taped just an hour or so before, so this match felt like a real misstep.
Then we got our main event, which was WALTER vs Trent Seven in a non-title big-time grudge match and if you enjoy watching a massive Austrian just fucking destroy a big, bearded Englishman while the Austrian's protofascist pals stand beside the ring and watch, then this is the match for you. Here's the thing about this match: I understood why they booked it this way and it told a solid story, but between watching this match and writing about it, I rewatched the brilliant Jeremy Saulnier thriller/horror film "Green Room" (it's about a punk band who end up under siege in a white supremacist bar in rural Oregon; it's on Netflix. Watch it, but maybe don't eat first). And I'm starting to think that the idea and presentation of Imperium is maybe a little bit more insidious than it should be. When Wolfe, Aichner and Barthel came out to the ring and stood barring the way to the ring as if they were on guard, it just looked a little too... well, it was uncomfortable to look at. Just visually, it reminded me of all the neo-Nazi rallies I've seen photos of, and as much as NXT's creative division might think, "well, they just look like bad asses", it's starting to become unpleasant to watch. I'm not saying that anyone in this stable or in Creative subscribe to fascist ideals or support white supremacy, but the visual cues are starting to look... not great. I don't have another way that I can put it. Let me stress again that my reviewing of this may likely be a bit colored by watching "Green Room", but it's just starting to make me not want to look and that's not the way I want to feel about any heel faction.
I know that we all love NXT because it tends to have more sophisticated and character-based storytelling and that's wonderful; it's a great little gift to get every week and it renews my faith and rewards my investment and love by loving me back. But Imperium, while not necessarily being a bridge too far, is starting to seem kind of actually scary. Not Bray Wyatt-scary, but full-on sociopolitically frightening. Again, this is purely from a visual standpoint and I don't like harping on it, but it's legit starting to creep me out and not in the way they want me to be creeped out. I know that this may seem a little too "woke", but I can't be alone in this.
Okay, well, that ended on a much weirder note than I intended it to. Anyway, I'll be back next week with more coverage of all things from the Black and Gold brand, so stay tuned because more good stuff is coming up! And oh, yeah, the G1 Climax is fucking great. You should watch as much as you can. The match that was on AXS TV last week between Okada and Ospreay was phenomenal. Will is going to go over Okada one of these days, but damn if they always seem to make it look very evenly contested. Since Bea Priestley is currently working over in AEW, I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see Will join her there in the not-too-distant future. I know that Will just moved to Japan, but I could easily see him going to AEW when his contract is up, and I want to see Will become an even bigger star, but not a WWE guy.
Until next time, kids...
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