WWE NXT
AMERICAN DRAGON = "AWWWWESOME" DRAGON? ... MAYBE NOT.
Having Miz "mentor" Danielson, is so hilarious, and I'm almost 100% positive it was done on purpose, with the intention of getting the smarks undies in a twist, and possibly creating some awesome (pun intended) tension between the two.
As for the rest of the pairings, I'm a little less intrigued, only because of my lack of knowledge of the FCW roster. But that's fine. Because the entire point of the show is for you to learn about these new guys in a new way. It's not Tough Enough where you just learn about these boring dudes (for the most part) and watch them learn how to actually wrestle... it's (as far as I know, which isn't far, because the show hasn't aired yet 'n stuff) like The Ultimate Fighter.
Some may say that those two things are the exact same thing.
Not so.
TUF is about profiling two guys each episode, and getting to know the dudes themselves. When a guy like Big Country from this past season is shown being cocky and cracking jokes after a fight, or when the announcers explain how deadly of a knockout specialist a dude is, they're trying to get him and/or his gimmick over to an audience that doesn't know who these guys are. Sure, the UFC is real, but they're working to promote fights, embellish fighters' personas and abilities and build up heat between guys, just like the WWE.
So NXT has the opportunity to do the same. Instead of the focus of the show being on learning about the business, the focus will be on getting new guys over to an audience that doesn't know them. Sounds cool to me.
At first I was upset that guys like Low Ki (Kaval), Brett DiBiase, Joe Hennig and the Rotundas weren't included. But then I remembered that it's not like you HAVE to go through this show to get to the main roster. I assume the reason they were left off was to uphold the reality aspect of the show - a guy named Kaval may seem a tad hokey on a show featuring dudes with real-sounding names. As for the 3rd-generation guys, it seems like that the WWE likes to let their history help them along, so maybe the thinking was that they didn't "need" NXT to get them over since they already have something going for them. All of this is just top-of-my-head speculation.
With ECW being extremely (pun intended again! lolololollzzol) hard to watch in Canada (originally aired at midnight on Fridays, now it's not even on then... I really don't know when it's on, but now it's dead, so THANKS GLOBAL TV), I'm worried NXT will be just as difficult to see.
One way or another I will find a way to catch this debut show, which should be entertaining, or at the very least interesting. I hope I don't eat those words.
I don't know what to think about this show. I'm trying not to bring any inflated expectations to this show or unwarranted negativity. Basically I'll just wait and see. WWE hasn't exactly been on a roll for me lately and their portrayal of "reality" (Bret Hart smashes equipment, Bret Hart in tragic random car accident) has been laughable. Hopefully they don't bring their overzealous action entertainment production to the show and go for the bare bones TUF approach. Who knows. I liked Dragon's haircut and that Low Ki will likely debut on his own. Next Tuesday is a big day for Daniel Bryan.
ReplyDeleteYou're speaking some serious R Truth here.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that gives me more hope than hate is that there seems to be different people/writers/creative team peeps/whatever working on the different brands. ECW and Smackdown are heads and shoulders and entire torsos above RAW when it comes to putting on a wrestling TV show about wrestling.
So hopefully the action-entertainment remains on RAW where it should be. And by should be I mean shouldn't be at all.
Oh, and I assume (zero factual knowledge on this subject) that whoever was working on ECW will work on NXT.
ReplyDeleteFuck, I dunno.
HOW ARE WE GOING TO WATCH IT? Stupid goddamned Canada Global TV bastards.
haha yeah I was thinking that too. Maybe if they have an entirely different crop of creative on this it will have a different vibe and maybe (here is a big leap, but at one time I thought Undertaker CM Punk would be feud of the year so I'm allowed to dream) but maybe if it is successful the approach will bleed into RAW and WWE will become the more realistic blend of reality and fiction that you would imagined would've come out of the late 90's. Or maybe after NXT is done Jerry Lawler will tell us it was just a little skit they rehearsed and Daniel Bryan isn't even hired by WWE. Who knows?
ReplyDeletebahaha... I forgot about that. Jerry Lawler saying "hey, we were just pretending!" So that skit was fake? AND WRESTLING IS FAKE? IS NOTHING REAL ANYMORE?!
ReplyDeleteHoly shit that RAW blew. The Road to WrestleMania is paved with dog poop.
I'll be able to download it so we can just stick it into our schedule.. or we could justin tv it likely or something. There are so many things I wanna know but only have a week to wait and it still gets to me. So many questions. Where does the mentoring take place? Is it all in front of a live crowd? Is it in a house? Gym? Ring? Is there only 1 match an episode? Who the fuck knows anything.
ReplyDeleteI know. Smackdown has been good, but if we take off the Thursday Raw Thursday mind trick, Raw has been horrible.
ReplyDeleteLogically I think it can only be like a regular WWE show, considering it sounds like they just came up with the idea like yesterday, they probably wouldn't have time to move them into some house, film, edit and get it ready in a week for a match in whatever town they happen to be in each week.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that it's all backstage stuff unless if they film individual vignettes or something.
Or they'll live together in a house on a flatbed truck that follows the WWE around the world.
yeah good point. they will likely tour with them and stuff. I guess a house doesn't make any sense. But thats what scares me. A ton of backstage stuff? Even on Smackdown and ECW backstage stuff is still down with hokey production and bad acting aside from the rare anomaly. My fingers are crossed that they are taking a completely different approach to the backstage (or gym or whatever) stuff on this show. Like even a different looking camera and stuff would be great.
ReplyDeleteYeah, for sure. Even still, just the fact that they've got something that sounds interesting and exciting is a great start. Usually it's like "oh jesus that is going to blow dicks."
ReplyDeleteAgreed at least it makes me want to tune in. Like you said, I hope we don't eat these words.
ReplyDeletewere you guys in the same room when you had this discussion?
ReplyDelete