Falls Count Anywhere

06/15/2010

Let us all congregate to congrieve together...

The WWE finally managed to do it. They managed to put together an angle that really pulled everything together. They may have had a plan for NXT all along, and while they’re now working on a second season with new wrestlers as the stars, they may have done something very right with the first batch of eight NXT stars. How? By finishing off an over-long, pretty dreadful 3-hour episode of RAW with the type of attack that would have felt perfect as a part of the 1996 nWo invasions of WCW. The thing is, this was way better because it felt way more legit.

The whole thing started when the audience voted for CM Punk to face John Cena in the main event of the show. There was no way either of the others would have gotten the vote, and there was no way that they could do this match with a real ending.

They had Wade Barrett, the winner of NXT, come down the ramp and distract John Cena, allowing Punk to leave the ring, when all the other NXT Rookies came out, all of them wearing black and yellow armbands with Ns on them. They were already branded as a team, it would seem. They beat down the Straight Edge Messiah along with Luke Gallows and I think that Serena (the hottest woman in wrestling at the moment) ran off.

Hottest woman in wrestling right now? Discuss.

The eight of them then surrounded the ring, hopping up on the apron with Cena trapped in there. There was a weird kind of heat that I’ve only heard a couple of times. The first time was when the Undertaker debuted and no one had any idea what to think. The other was when Mick Foley and Terry Funk were thrown off the stage in a dumpster by the New Age Outlaws. This was that sort of thing. It was a ‘What the Hell is Going On?” vibe.

The NXT Rookies entered the ring and they ended up surrounding Cena and then they beat him down. This would have been OK, would have helped the NXT guys get over, but then there was more. The guys kept beating on Cena, giving him their signature moves over and over. Some others headed out to ringside and kept on beating on people. They beat up the ring announcer, the announce team, a cameraman, Matt Striker, and just about everybody.

They also broke the announcers’ table, knocked one of the ropes off the turnbuckles, tore up the mat from the ring, pulled up the pads surrounding the ring and threw around the chairs. This was a serious angle and it had a serious vibe running through the crowd. It was a big time angle that felt like it got the guys over more than the entire NXT series had.

Now, here’s the thing: this requires a real follow-up. They have to put over the NXT guys solid. They need to give them serious wins, or at least have them continuing to destroy the WWE’s upper echelon stars. Having Undertaker come back and having them put him out, that’s a good start.

enjoy the moment, guys...

You have to remember that the nWo wasn’t a single angle. They had Hall and Nash do some beat-downs, then they had the Hogan turn, and perhaps the biggest of them all, the time they just destroyed everyone and tossed Rey Misterio like a lawn dart into the production truck. They kept winning big matches and tearing apart sets and disrupting everything. It was an amazing time, and if the WWE goes with that concept, it could work.

Now, if they just book them as they usually do, as a secondary set to the stars, that’s where this turns into the WCW invasion of the WWE back in 2001. It makes so much sense to keep them out of the ring except to disrupt the shows and beat guys down. Make them into thugs. This would also hide the weaknesses of the various guys.

Of course, they could just have Bryan Danielson as the star.

This is an opportunity the likes of which few rookies have gotten over the years. I hope that they manage to put them over and keep them over. I think there’s some real talent, Danielson, obviously, but I really think that Justin Gabriel and Wade Barrett could make it. Heath Slater looked good in the beat-down, and David Otunga might be able to turn his natural hate charisma into some sort of drawing gimmick.

Let’s see where this goes.

Chris Garcia