A Night of Squashes
Three of the four matches on NXT featured less than five minutes. We saw Drew McIntyre annihilate his competition in less than three minutes, hitting his beautiful Claymore Kick to pick up the win and open NXT on a strong note with one of their more familiar faces. After he left, the next bout would be Authors of Pain against a couple of jamoches.
As the champions celebrated, Paul Ellering cut a promo on Heavy Machinery and the two teams stood face to face in the ring. AoP would leave before anything physical happened. The Velveteen Dream was the third match of the night and the man formerly known as Patrick Clark made easy waste of his opponent.
What does this tell you? NXT is trying very hard in protecting their “new” guys and their champions. Drew McIntyre has not really had a feud yet and is steamrolling through a bunch of indy guys. He was already a big deal in WWE and his return should be more like Bobby Roode’s than what they are doing with him now. If I was NXT, I throw McIntyre in with a feud against either Aleister Black. That would be something I could watch every day. Both men are strong and physical in their offense utilizing their lower body strength. They can culminate with an epic encounter in Brooklyn, instead of swapping shows back and forth to see who can dominate their opposition faster.
Heavy Machinery is not ready for Authors of Pain, but there is no other options you can book as a face. I still am a firm believer in putting your best talent against your best, heel or not. If that is the case, give me Sanity vs. Authors of Pain.
Lastly, The Velveteen Dream is perfectly fine with me. He is still very fresh and his gimmick is so “out there” that matches like this give us a sample size of what he can do in the ring. If I am NXT, I book backstage vignettes with him, similar to what they are trying to do with Goldust.
