Breaking Ground Episode 8: Crossroads
Submitted by: Ryan Pike
Big Takeaway: Tino Sabatelli takes a step backwards, Sami Zayn works on his shoulder rehab, and Dana Brooke gets injured by Asuka’s ass on another chaotic episode of Breaking Ground.
Show Recap: As with last week, an unfocused journey through NXT.
Building off last episode’s cliffhanger, Triple H commends Bayley and Sasha Banks for their performance at TakeOver Brooklyn, notes that he thinks they left some “story on the table,” and asks them to main event the next TakeOver event in an Iron Man match. They (obviously) accept.
Scott Hall visits the Performance Center for a week and is asked by Matt Bloom to work a bit with Baron Corbin. He gives him a few pointers as far as working heel goes, but aside from that and giving Apollo Crews some pointers on doing interviews – don’t make it seem like you’re cutting a promo, just speak like you usually do – he doesn’t really do much of anything.
Sami Zayn is back at the Performance Center working on his shoulder rehabilitation and hopefully to get closer to a return. He’s not cleared yet and he does some resistance exercises that are designed to test his shoulder. Regal still thinks Zayn has a ways to go yet as a performer and wants him to focus on the basic notion of pro wrestling: at its core, it’s two people competing. Since he’s not cleared yet, he focuses on helping Tyler Breeze tutor Eva Marie. He offers her this advice on using pin-fall attempts to pace a match: “If we’re selling a story, these [sequences] are sentences, [pinfalls] are the punctuation.”
Tino Sabbatelli is given a match, his second match ever, on a house show against Apollo Crews. He develops his character by looking at sweet suits. Tino does not look great in his match with Apollo. His striking looks terrible and he turns away from contact on a drop-kick in a way that almost endangers Apollo. Bloom gives him a rundown of what he did wrong, emphasizing paying attention to details and his striking (Vince’s motto is apparently “Men throw punches.”). Corbin pulls him aside and gives him some advice, too (noting that he’s had two matches and to put in the work). After the show, Bloom tells Tino that he’s being put back in Robbie Brookside’s beginners class (presumably so he can work on some fundamentals).
Dana Brooke works out with the new Australian girls – Billie Kay is specifically identified – and talks about not being intimidated working with Asuka, who’s finally identified on this show. Anyway, immediately after talking about not being intimidated, she’s knocked loopy by an Asuka hip attack in a work-out and that’s the big cliffhanger: did Asuka’s ass kill Dana Brooke? (Spoiler: no.)
In less important news: Josh from Tough Enough’s wife and daughter move to Florida finally, Nia Jax designs her ring gear for her TV debut, and Mojo Rawley has a party.
Final Thoughts: Sadly, it was another fairly unfocused episode, as it included way too many NXT personalities for any of them to really register as important.
