Crowd loved chanting with Jose and popped for his antics. Match itself was tame, with lots of stalling and wristlocks. Jose won with a half nelson slam.
– Chris Girard vs Manny Andrade
Crowd didn’t react at all to their entrances, but got into it as it went along. Manny faked a moonsault from the top, then immediately hit a standing moonsault as Girard tried to roll out of the way for a huge reaction. Manny won with a running double knees to a sitting Girard in the corner.
– Tye Dillinger vs Austin Aries
Crowd was hot for both guys, with lots of dueling “Austin Aries/Perfect 10!” chants. They did a lot of mat wrestling, with a bunch of counters. The match was really good, and Austin eventually won with a roaring elbow.
– Triple Threat NXT Women’s Championship: Alexa Bliss vs Bayley vs Asuka (c)
This was a change from the online card, as it was supposed to be Bliss vs Asuka and Bayley vs Eva Marie. Pretty standard triple threat match, with one girl out of the ring most the time. Bayley hit Asuka with the Bayley to Belly, but Bliss threw her out, and got caught by the Asuka Lock for the finish.
– There was an intermission, where Tom Phillips came back out and pronounced the name of the town wrong. There was much booing.
– Tyler Breeze vs Shinsuke Nakamura
Before the match, Tyler cut a promo, essentially reminding us of his status as NXT gatekeeper. He’s fought everyone in NXT, and any new faces have to get through him. Cue the Nakamura chants. Nakamura got a huge reaction for everything he did, but the crowd loved both guys. They did pure comedy at first, with Nakamura trying to mock Breeze’s corner pose, and unable to get to the top rope, doing it on the bottom rope instead. Breeze tried to do Nakamura’s entrance pose on the rope, but couldn’t lean back far enough, so Nakamura gave him a hand. Later, Nakamura got a hold of Breeze’s camera and took a selfie. Nakamura kicked out of the Beauty Shot, and Tyler went for a chair. When the ref took it from him, Nakamura threw Breeze with the reverse powerslam and hit the Kinshasha for the win.
– Alexander Wolfe & Sawyer Fulton vs. NXT Tag Team Champions American Alpha (Chad Gable & Jason Jordan)
Wolfe and Fulton look like Mad Max characters. They overpowered Gable until he finally got the hot tag to Jordan. Alphas are fun to watch, but the crowd was a bit out of it after the Nakamura match, and Wolfe/Fulton didn’t do much interesting to get us back. American Alpha won with their assisted suplex.
– NXT Champion Samoa Joe vs. Finn Balor
Another split crowd here. Finn got a huge “Bullet Club” chant before the match. The match itself was good, with a lot of their signature stuff being countered by each other. Joe won with the muscle buster.
After he recovered from the match, Balor had Phillips come back out and apologize for pronouncing “Salina” wrong, doing his best Stone Cold and The Rock impersonations to send Phillips packing, then finished with the “We Are NXT” slogan.
Our opening contest is presented to us off the back of a one-week build, after Goldust’s selfie stick antics distracted Tyler into a loss to Titus O’Neil on last week’s Smackdown. It’s a measure of how far Breeze’s star has fallen that this match did not even make it on to Tuesday night’s live show – a show that, for example, featured The Ascension paying the price for not respecting decorations.
Cute spot to begin here, where Tyler lies on the turnbuckle while waiting for Goldust to arise from his pre-match squat position, only for Goldust to then mimic him after getting the upper hand with a shoulder tackle.
Goldust hits his reverse atomic drop, before sending Breeze to the outside and grabbing the selfie stick from a concerned Summer Rae. Breeze turns him around in fury, only to eat a forearm – allowing Goldust to take a lovely photo of himself and his fallen foe leading into commercials. Refreshing after watching this week’s Smackdown, where FOUR matches went to break right after the heel gained the advantage. Nice work, Road Dogg.
Back with Goldust still on top, but Tyler quickly reverses the momentum by hitting a dropkick as Goldust comes off the ropes. Uninspiring heel offence follows, before Goldust briefly initiates a comeback – only to be cut-off with a super(model)kick for two. This leads us into the near-falls segment of the match, where Goldust also manages a typically crisp snap powerslam for another close two. He then inexplicably goes to the top rope, only to be distracted by Summer climbing the ringsteps in a repeat of last week’s awful Neville/Rusev finish.
This allows Breeze to hit a second Supermodel Kick to down Goldust and secure the pinfall. Couple of mildly amusing moments from Goldust before the heat, but the rest wasn’t great – capped by a super-lame finish.
Bo Dallas def. Fandango by pinfall
Box-office stuff. Fandango cuts off Bo’s patented early victory lap (Bo: “I’M WINNING!”) with a clothesline, before shouting “Bolieve!” to celebrate.
Very short match here, with not much of a structure to it. Fandango quickly starts his comeback after a Bo chinlock, hitting a dangerous looking slingshot leg drop for two. Pretty sure he connected with Bo’s face on that one.
Fandango goes up top for The Last Dance, only for Bo to down him by hitting the ropes, before lifting him for his spinning neckbreaker off the ropes for the win.
After the match, Bo finally finishes that victory lap, before getting on the mic to announce to the crowd that the rest of 2015 doesn’t matter – as he’s finished it a winner. He tells us that this is “just the bo-ginning”. Best of luck with that, champ.
– We get a comprehensive look-back at Monday night’s Slammy Award ceremony.
Jack Swagger def. The Miz by submission
Miz holds up proceedings by flapping his arms to prepare for sunglasses takeoff, as is customary. Swagger, unimpressed, responds by making Miz wait for a rousing “We The People” chant.
Early Swagger shine falls asunder when he attempts a suplex to the outside, only for Miz to duck under his legs, drop him on the apron and hit him with a baseball slide leading into commercials.
Back with Miz signalling for the Awesome Clothesline (Miz: “I’m the people!”), only for Swagger to explode out of the corner with one of his own. Miz rolls to the floor to escape the ensuing Swagger Bomb attempt and decides to head up the ramp and cut his losses. Swagger chases him down however, and they do the “I’ll hold the back of your head while we walk together” spot on the way back to the ring.
Miz gets his feet up off another Swagger Bomb attempt before hitting the DDT for two, to lead us into a very nice near-fall sequence. Said sequence culminates with Miz landing on his feet off an attempted Swagger gutwrench, before hitting a running boot to the head for two. Miz stalls and milks the crowd heat before lining up another – and hitting it. He then goes to the well a third time, only to be rolled-up for another close two-count. This allows Swagger to finally hit the Swagger Bomb at the third time of asking.
Forearm exchange follows, which Swagger gets the best of, but Miz dodges a corner charge and finally gets that Awesome Clothesline he looked for earlier. Miz then, like Goldust, inexplicably goes to the top, only to jump right into a belly-to-belly slam and a Patriot Lock for the submission. Surprisingly good match from these two.
Final Thoughts
A step up from last week’s show as the so-called “featured contest”, between Jack Swagger and The Miz, was a very watchable affair. More bad news for Tyler Breeze however, as the first match of the Goldust feud that began on last week’s Smackdown wasn’t even deemed worthy of a spot on this week’s live show. Hey, at least he won for a change.
Key Takeaway: NXT heads down to Texas for a sold-out three city tour, while Josh tries to parlay his Tough Enough win into a WWE career.
Show Recap: The NXT tour of Texas provided the framework for an unusually focused edition of Breaking Ground this week. The entirety of the episode was split between getting to know Josh, who won Tough Enough this summer, and following the NXT veterans on their three-city Texas trip.
We meet Josh in the gym, where Jason Albert tells him he needs to take yoga because he’s in the rookie class. His big-money contract is briefly mentioned, and Albert tells him to get his banking and living situation set up and then it’s time to get to work. Later, Josh helps set up the ring at Full Sail for the NXT tapings and talks about having a huge desire to get in the ring. He says he has to trust in the coaches and their plan for him.
Later on, we join Josh at the grocery store. His wife and daughter call (via Facetime) and he talks about uprooting his family from Colorado so he can follow his dreams and how much it motivates him. He’s in the process of finding a place for them all to live so he can move them down to Florida. Later, we join Josh in promo class. He kind-of sucks, and delivers an awkward, meandering promo, trying to use his Tough Enough persona “the Yeti.” William Regal’s obviously disappointed (after 10 weeks on the mic in Tough Enough), advising him to be flexible and to ditch the Yeti thing. The coaches discuss Josh’s lack of progress in a meeting. At the end of the episode, Josh delivers a slightly better version of the same bad promo. Regal looks displeased. Josh doesn’t come across well, despite having a cute daughter.
The other two-thirds of the episode, focusing on the NXT shows in Houston, Austin and San Antonio, was really good. In Houston, they spent some time with Tyler Breeze and his history – he grew up on WWE and wanted to be a wrestler, but nearly got cut after years in developmental before falling into the Tyler Breeze character. He’s been in NXT for five years, and we get a montage of the 50+ wrestlers who have been called up from developmental since he’s been there. He’s hoping his call-up is coming soon and he seems really into his character, even staying in his persona backstage in Austin when Jason Jordan ribs him about wearing amateur wrestling boots. We hang out backstage as Sara Amato and Adam Pearce produce a show, paying a lot of attention to the Tyler Breeze/Samoa Joe match. Everyone praises Breeze’s match afterwards. There’s some downtime afterwards in Austin for the talent, so Baron Corbin goes to a bar to unwind and watch a band (but he has to deal with fans taking photos with him). Breeze and Tye Dillinger go looking for bats and find some under a bridge.
The segment in San Antonio spends a lot more time out of the ring. Breeze and Corbin argue about specific details of Texas history at the Alamo. Carmella and Colin Cassady, who seem to be a couple though it’s never stated, go to buy cowboy boots and cowboy hats. Apollo Crews’ sister visits him backstage and marvels at how far he’s come in his career – she says the last time she saw him, he was in Japan. Corbin’s cousin and nephew also visit. At the show, Carmella’s a little blown away that people cheer for her. Corbin loses to Joe (as Breeze did the previous night), and tells a story about his cousin texting him after the show to say his nephew wanted to beat up Samoa Joe because he was mad that he lost. After the show, everyone flies home – including Carmella with a spectacular (and complete in-character) leopard-print neck pillow.
Final Thoughts: If the goal of the first few episodes of Breaking Ground was to convince you that the NXT wrestlers that make it on TV are hard-working and that the Tough Enough guys are lazy and terrible, mission accomplished. The more time they spend on the up-and-coming NXT television performers – particularly Dana Brooke, Tyler Breeze and Apollo Crews – the more they come across as really likeable, enjoyable personas. Heck, Baron Corbin even seems like a relatable human even though he seems pretty obnoxious at times. But the time spent with ZZ (last week) and Josh (this week) seems wasted by comparison, and it waters the show down quite a bit.
If only the whole 30-ish minutes were solely devoted to the main NXT crew.
– Air Date: October 22, 2015 – Location: Frank Erwin Center in Austin, TX
The Big News:
Tyler Breeze made a strong debut.
Show Recap:
Smackdown started with a cold open – Seth Rollins walked around backstage wearing a smile, until he ran into a gleeful Kane and stopped smiling. Rollins and asked why he’s here if he’s been suspended and Kane said his suspension was just for Raw.
Rollins told Kane he should enjoy his last night as director on Smackdown. Kane told him the fans will get one last chance to see Rollins as champion and he will open the show against a mystery opponent. Kane told Rollins not to feign another injury because you never know who will show up to stop him.
Kane kept walking and greeted Kofi Kingston and Big E, who looked very upset. Kane loved New Day’s positivity but they were both upset over their precious Xavier Woods going through a table on Raw. They both wore poorly made “XW” armbands in Woods’ honour. Kingston said they were supposed to be three unicorns spreading magic throughout WWE, but now they’re only two unicorns.
Kane faked playing a sad trombone (Xavier Woods must be spinning in his grave) and put them in a match against Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns. New Day didn’t like this idea so Kane did the sad trombone noise again and left. Kane did this poorly and Kingston made sure to point that out. Kingston and Big E were great. Somewhere in here, Big E said Kane wasn’t the D.O.O. (Director of Operations), he was “B.O.O… T.Y. Booty!”
Seth Rollins beat Cesaro via pinfall
Rollins escaped a crossface early and bailed. He grabbed his title and they showed Stardust and The Ascension watching the match from the first row. Rollins began walking out, but as the referee’s count got to eight, he jumped back in the ring. Cesaro hit him with uppercuts and a dropkick and Rollins bailed again. Cesaro went after Rollins but Rollins tossed him into the barricade and steel steps.
Rollins had the heat after the break and hit a flying knee. Rollins went to the top but Cesaro dropkicked him to the outside and followed with a running uppercut. Cesaro posed in the crowd and they cheered loudly, including Stardust whose reaction was great. Cesaro caught him with a flying crossbody in the ring for a nearfall. Rollins connected with an enzuigiri and superkick for two.
Cesaro came back with a pop-up uppercut and followed with a crossface but Rollins squirmed to the ropes. Cesaro tried a superplex but Rollins slid out, wiped out Cesaro by the feet, and hit a pedigree for the win. This was really good. The finish was a little abrupt but the champ winning clean with his finisher is not a bad thing.
Backstage, Renee Young interviewed The Miz about interviewing Summer Rae and Dolph Ziggler. Miz said Summer had a huge announcement that would be trending everywhere. He asked Renee who does her hair and, before she could answer, told her to call his people.
They aired a video for their [corporate sponsor] cancer awareness month. It was actually a nice video and people cheered.
In the ring, Paige said she’s been accused of attacking Natalya but nobody believes that she didn’t do it. Paige said she only cares about the opinion of two people, Charlotte and Becky Lynch, and called them out. Paige started to ramble so Becky told her to hurry up and finish her empty speech.
Paige claimed to be sincere when she said she was happy that Charlotte and Becky got called up. Becky reminded Paige that she said Charlotte only won the title because of her father and called Becky irrelevant. Paige admitted she said some mean things but they’re a family.
Charlotte stopped her there and said she couldn’t understand where Paige was coming from. She said Paige should understand what it’s like winning your first [women’s] title but Paige was making it about herself again.
Team Bella interrupted. Nikki said nothing got in her way when she was champion and Brie asked if this was Smackdown or an episode of Pretty Little Liars. They cut to the ring and Paige mouthed “I don’t even know what that is.” Nikki called Charlotte “little miss Flair” and Paige “baby Beetlejuice.”
Nikki said she would win her title back, and Charlotte reminded her who the champion was. Charlotte offered to put the title on the line right now, but Paige stepped in and said Nikki would have to face her instead. Nikki accepted. Paige, Charlotte and Lynch were good here. The Bellas were the Bellas. Fox said nothing.
Nikki had the heat for a while but Paige came back with knees in the corner and a superkick. Nikki used the tights to toss Paige into the ropes and tried a cover holding the tights for a two count. Nikki hit a spinebuster and went for the rack attack but Paige tried a roll up with the tights for two. Paige followed with a fallaway slam for two.
Nikki came back with an Alabama Slam for two. Booker called it a sidewalk slam. Nikki tried an elbow smash, Paige ducked and tried another superkick, but Nikki countered into the elbow and nailed the rack attack for the win. Good match. Aside: Nikki’s pants are impossibly small and she looked down at her own boobs about five times.
The Miz was out for MizTV. He called out Ziggler and asked what it’s like to be tossed aside. Ziggler said Lana can do whatever she wants, but Summer was using him and he didn’t want any part of it. Miz called her out. Summer said it’s clear she proposed to the wrong man. Ziggler stopped her and said “I’m just not that into you, bro.” Summer laughed and said she was over Ziggler and she found a real man, which brought out the debuting Tyler Breeze.
Breeze came out in purple with his full entrance and selfie stick. He didn’t get a big reaction but people were chanting NXT. Breeze accused Ziggler of being stuck in 1985 because of his outfit and called himself the Gorgeous One, the King of Cuteville and the Sultan of Selfies, but introduced himself to Ziggler as Tyler Breeze.
Breeze said when he heard his Summer was being mistreated by some uggo (ugly person), he had no choice but to fly in from Monte Carlo to be with her. People chanted “Tyler’s gorgeous.” Breeze said he and Summer would give WWE a facelift and they took a selfie, which showed up on the big screen. “Prince Pretty has arrived.”
Ziggler said he’s seen guys like Breeze come and go and called him a lazy millennial. Breeze attacked him with a forearm for saying something so stupid and they brawled. Breeze got the better of it when he put Ziggler’s throat against the selfie stick and smashed it into a turnbuckle. He beat down Ziggler some more until referee broke it up. Breeze hit a spinning heel kick and took another picture with Summer. This was a good debut and it seems like the WWE crowd will get into Breeze as a heel if they keep him strong.
Sheamus & King Barrett (w/Rusev) beat The Lucha Dragons via pinfall
In an inset promo, Barrett said he and Sheamus have shared plenty of pints and have had many scraps, but they always emerge victorious when fighting back-to-back. Sheamus said they’ve decided to take their arse-kicking stills off the street and into the ring. Rusev screamed about crushing their opponents on Sunday. Barrett and Sheamus were amused.
Heels worked over Sin Cara until he tagged Kalisto who did his usual impressive-looking offense on Sheamus. The highlight of the match came next. Sin Cara went for a dive on Barrett to the outside, but Rusev ran and aggressively pushed Barrett out of the way, and Sin Cara splatted onto the mats. Kalito then hit a dive on Rusev as he argued with the referee.
Kalisto avoided an attack by Barrett but Sheamus caught him with a Brogue kick for the win. The finishing sequence was great and I like this heel trio. Kalisto was impressive too.
The announcers pushed the WWE Network and explained why you’re stupid if you order Hell in a Cell on pay per view.
Ryback beat Bo Dallas via pinfall
Bo cut a dumb promo about nothing before the match until Ryback interrupted. I was hoping Ryback would just kill him but they actually had a match scheduled. Bo got some offense, which is too much offense, but Ryback beat him with a clothesline and shell shocked.
Backstage, Kevin Owens told Renee that Ryback is a freak of nature and shows respect for previous champions. Owens said he’s not like that, but he’s the champion and asked Renee what that says about him. Renee said arrogance can be a dangerous tool. Owens said she can call it arrogance, but it actually means he’s better than Ryback. Owens said, as far as he’s concerned, the Intercontinental Title didn’t exist before he had it. HIAC would be the Kevin Owens Show and he will walk out as champion. Good promo.
They aired a video for Brock Lesnar vs. Undertaker
Non-Title: Roman Reigns & Dean Ambrose beat WWE Tag-Team Champions Kofi Kingston & Big E via pinfall
Kingston touched his “XW” armband and pointed to the sky. Ambrose chopped Kingston and Big E yelled, “Protect yourself, Kofi!” Reigns tagged in and got a nice reaction and hit Kingston with a clothesline. Kingston immediately tagged out and Big E did his little dance at Reigns.
They went back and forth but Big E got the heat after pushing Reigns off the ring into the barricade. Reigns waited until after a commercial break to battle back and tag in Ambrose, who nailed a dive on Big E outside the ring. Kingston used a referee distraction to take out Ambrose and New Day regained control.
Kingston played hopscotch before doing his jumping leg drop. He tried a crossbody but Ambrose ducked and tagged in Reigns. Reigns used clotheslines in the corner and took out Big E with an apron dropkick. He gave Kingston one too, but used the announce table.
Ambrose hit a missile dropkick on Big E and both New Day members were sent to the outside. They bailed and went backstage, but The Dudleys backed them towards the ring. Ambrose and Reigns used a doomsday device on Big E, Reigns hit Kingston with a superman punch and spear for the win. This was fun.
Reigns and Ambrose posed and it seemed like the show was about to go off the air, but Bray Wyatt appeared on the screen. Bray said Reigns can’t outrun his fear and would see him in hell.
Final Thoughts:
Thumbs up for this show. Good wrestling up and down, and Tyler Breeze’s debut was well done. I’m also glad they did it on Smackdown instead of Raw.
Figure Four Daily with Bryan Alvarez and Lance Storm returns today with tons to talk about including details on Tyler Breeze and his Smackdown debut, the daughter of a famous wrestling personality training with Lance, Raw from Monday and 19 years ago this week, Nitro thoughts, and tons more! A fun show as always so check it out~!
Wrestling Observer Live with Bryan Alvarez and Mike Sempervive returns today to talk all the news in wrestling and MMA including tons of thoughts on the debut of Tyler Breeze on Smackdown, potential Bryan & Vinny Show changes, former Tough Enough stars signed to the company, calls, emails, texts and more! A fun show as always so check it out~!
