Original Airdate: Wednesday, December 26th, 2012
Full Sail University
Winter Park, Florida
Follow me on Twitter: @WorkTheNetwork2
Tony Dawson is here to recap the year that was 2012 for NXT. Since this is a recap show, I am going to re-post my match thoughts.
From the 8-29-12 episode:
NXT Championship Match
Jinder Mahal vs. Seth Rollins
Jim Ross joins the booth and they try their best to make Mahal seem like the favorite. I don't know why, but Rollins looks like Will Forte with long hair and a beard in this era. Mahal refuses to shake Dusty's hand to some boos. Rollins gets off to the early start. Rollins misses with a knee, but ends up sending Mahal to the outside. Mahal blocks a kick and slams him face first to the apron. Mahal slams him down to the floor. Back from commercial and Mahal is stretching Rollins. Rollins battles out of it and attempts a suplex, but his back is sore and Mahal goes back to work on it. Big backbreaker for a 2 count. The story of this match makes sense all the way, but Mahal is just so uninteresting that even a great performer such as Rollins has a hard time bringing out personality. Rollins is fighting back with some kicks and a single legged dropkick. Rollins does a crossbody from the top rope to the floor nails Mahal and the crowd is getting pretty juiced. The crowd has come a long way since the first episode. They built a nice little audience in a short amount of time. Mahal now nails a superplex and both men are down as we hit the last commercial break. They go back and forth until Mahal hits a nice suplex. Everything with Mahal is so slow motion as made evident by the spot they do where Rollins misses a kick but hits an enzaguri. Rollins hits a knee off the top and only gets a 2 count. Rollins misses his corkscrew off the top rope and Mahal hits the full nelson slam and somehow Rollins kicks out. Mahal goes for the Camel Clutch, but Rollins gets to the ropes before he gets it on. Mahal goes for it again and Rollins gets a roll up for another 2 count. Rollins has Mahal up for a buckle bomb and the Blackout for the victory. Seth Rollins is the first ever NXT Champion to a nice pop. That is definitely one of Mahal's best matches, but that is not saying a whole lot.
Match Rating: **3/4
They show a highlight package of the many young stars of NXT.
They show a Wyatt Family vignette. This was the Wyatt I enjoyed. They then show a match from 7-11-12 on NXT. Here is my review from that episode:
Aiden English vs. Bray Wyatt
Wyatt comes out cutting a promo saying that in time we will understand exactly who he is. Well, it's 2019 and we still don't know what his character is other than a disappointment. Wyatt comes out aggressively attacking English. I'd like to see more of this side of Bray when he finally returns. Saxton refers to him as a third generation superstar, which I don't think they really have made reference to on the main roster. Sister Abigail and that's all. I truly miss this version of Wyatt's character.
Match Rating: 1/2*
They then show a backstage interview of him.
We get a Kassius Ohno vignette, followed by a backstage interview. He thinks he will win the NXT Championship in 2013.
CM Punk is here to give his Christmas gift. He talks about Seth Rollins taking his advice, as he is now in The Shield. He says that being WWE Champion is attainable for the young NXT talent and that at Royal Rumble he will defeat The Rock.
It's Big E Langston's turn here for a vignette. We now get a match from 11-21-12. Here is my review:
Camacho vs. Big E Langston
Camacho's ring attire was Baron Corbin before Baron Corbin. Camacho gets a few moves in, but it's all for nothing as Big E dominates and hits his finisher for the victory. Big E continues to be the most over act on NXT. The crowd chants for one more time and Big E obliges, this time counting to 5. After a delay, Big E comes in yet again and hits his finisher for another 5 count. The match was nothing, but Big E's charisma is as good as it gets in NXT 2012.
Match Rating: 1/2*
They show a clip of Big E making his debut on Raw with AJ and Dolph Ziggler. I love the total disregard for NXT storylines. He does get to make quite the impact as he gets to attack John Cena. We then get an interview from Big E about why he attacked Cena. He said he was doing a favor for his friend AJ. His New Year's resolution is to become NXT Champion.
We get another hype video of more of the NXT talent.
They announce that on next week's episode we will get Corey Graves taking on Seth Rollins for the NXT Championship.
They show the history of Kane & Daniel Bryan vs. the Rhodes Scholars. We now have a never before seen match between Kane and Cody Rhodes from July.
Kane vs. Cody Rhodes
Well we get to see Mr. AEW himself for the first time on any of my timelines for the blog. Cody had really found his groove in this time and they never seemed ready to completely get behind him for whatever reason. After chasing Cody around, Kane hits a sit down dropkick. But again, Cody tries to escape but Kane chases him up the ramp. Back in the ring, Kane hits a big boot and then goes up top but Cody avoids it. Cody escapes a chokeslam and starts working on Kane's knee. We go to commercial break and come back to a John Cena promo and he reminds us that the future is NXT. Back to the match and Cody is still in control, as he puts Kane in a Figure Four. Cody hits a Kurt Angle-esque moonsault and almost gets the victory. They go back and forth until Kane hits a chokeslam and gets the victory. That was a pretty standard dark match that they ended up showing on here.
Match Rating: *1/2
We get interrupted by a Shield promo. Seth was tired of waiting for his "call up". Dean Ambrose introduces himself. Seth says he understands why Corey Graves did what he had to do, but he will be carried out of the building on a stretcher. Since we're all making New Year's resolutions, theirs is to bring justice.
Well, this was a studio recap show. There weren't a ton of great matches this year, but obviously the show improves drastically. The vignettes and video clips were well done and the Seth/Jinder match was pretty good, even if they only showed part of it. If you don't want to sit through months of mediocre shows from 2012, this is a solid enough place to start for the history of the old NXT.
Overall Rating: 40%
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