That Other Two Hours for week of 1/29-2/4/2017

  • Tony Nese defeats Lince Dorad0: Nese gets the expected win, but when he is beating on Dorado after the match, TJP storms out for the save.  Tony Nese is the Premier Athlete.  And I agree with that description fully.  Tony Nese and Neville should be an amazing match.
  • Brian Kendrick at ringside for Tozawa’s Squash Match:  In reality, Tozawa would kick the head off everyone in the ring, at commentary, doesn’t matter.  In WWE, he’s going to have a decent length tilt where you know he’s going to kick the head off his opponent.  I don’t know who this kid is, but he deserved better than getting absolutely obliterated by Tozawa.  Aries on the after match interview: “Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?”  Tozawa just spit off a bunch of Japanese, and then Kendrick talked crap for a few minutes.  One of them needs the belt so that this actually matters.
  • Neville and that weird, pasty, British dude…:  I know, that doesn’t narrow it down, so it is Neville vs Jack Gallagher.  Or not, it’s apparently a tag match, so we’ll assume it’s Dar and Neville vs Gallagher and ….. Cedric Alexander.  By all rights, Alexander and Gallagher should not, by any stretch of the imagination, be able to win this match, but this is the WWE, so……Anyway, Gallagher’s popularity means he gets to have a big match.  He’s actually been on the offensive for the majority of the first half of the match against Neville.  Neville would get over on him for a while, then tag out to Dar.  Dar is a damn good performer, so I’m glad they are giving him a few minutes of ring time. Dar would go for a tag to Neville, who would drop off the apron and not tag in, leaving Dar to fend for himself.  Neville abandons the match, Dar gets beat by Cedric, as would be expected.

NXT is mostly just filmed stuff from dark matches you’ve undoubtedly already read about at NXT TakeOver San Antonio.  In case you missed it, this song is fucking awesome and was the theme for NXTTOSA:

  • Ember Moon vs Aliyah:  We’ll go ahead and pretend you don’t already know that Ember Moon is going to slaughter Aliyah.  Rumor had it for a while that she was the Luchadora on Smackdown while they were waiting for Mickie James to be ready for regular appearances, but who knows.  Either way, you and I both know that Ember Moon crushes here, and I’m so thoroughly thankful that the audience in San Antonio got to see Ember Moon.  Total Eclipse, done.  Creepy kid at ringside needs a dentist, that level of gum bleeding is not normal.
  • Can you believe that Perfect 10 was actually the 10th entrant in the Rumble?  Neither can I.  That’s just awesome.
  • Tyler Bate vs Oney Lorcan:  A good damn match for an NXT show, even considering the fact that it was a dark match.  Tyler Bate hits the trademark Tyler Drive 97, picks up the win.  This was a damn good match. Would be nice if Lorcan would get a little more TV time.
  • Bobby Roode will address the NXT audience as Champion next week:  As if you didn’t already know that was going to be the case.
  • Ugh….The Drifter vs No Way Jose:  Why does NXT still try to make this work when clearly it doesn’t?  No Way Jose is fucking awesome.  Elias Samson is fucking garbage.  This was a much longer match than I expected, but also as I expected the better damn performer got the win.  No Way Jose is awesome.  The crowd was absolutely behind him as well.  Samson is built like a potential superstar, but his character is terrible and they need to put him with Sanity or something to make him more functional.
  • This was the last time you’ll see Corey Graves on NXT.  That’s the absolute saddest thing I’ve seen on NXT since NXT started.  I felt the need to tweet about it.  If you don’t already follow the Dark Match crew on social media, Jeremy and I are both readily available.  Just follow The Dark Match on either Facebook or Twitter and we’ll link up on our personal profiles.  We’re not shy.

That’s a shitload of wrestling over the course of 5 days.  2 hours of TakeOver, 6 hours of Royal Rumble, 3 hours of Raw, 2 hours of Smackdown, 1 hour of 205 Live, 1 hour of NXT.  That’s 15 hours of wrestling in 5 days.

I’ll see you next Tuesday.