NXT 185

September 4, 2013 – Winter Park, Florida

Charlotte & Bayley def. Alicia Fox & Aksana
The origin of the Bayley to Belly is in this match, as Bayley hugs Aksana and then hits it. Charlotte was a little off her game here and the finish was awkward as all get out. Pretty disappointing. *½

Corey Graves def. Rick Victor
I guess Victor stole Graves’ tag title belt when he attacked him. This was extremely long and incredibly boring. Holy shit why did they give this so much time? And now that the tag champs have both won against the Ascension in singles matches and retrieved Graves’s title belt, why would they grant them a tag title match? I bet it happens without any explanation. ¾*

Summer Rae continues to try to get Sasha Banks to wrestle like a dickhead in her match against Paige next week. There’s no pretext for the camera to be in the dressing room, and I think this is really the first time NXT has been this lazy about framing a backstage segment. And then the laziness continues as in the next backstage segment, Paige already knows that Rae was talking to Banks about this.

Alexander Rusev def. Mason Ryan
Ryan doesn’t know what he’s doing when he’s not in control, and can’t transition effectively. So watching WWE’s interest shift from Ryan to Rusev in this match was pretty astonishing, and frankly a relief. Sidenote, this is actually a great way to use lunks like Ryan: build him up for weeks over disposable jobbers, then have the guy you really want to push beat him up and tap him out. *¾

Outside, Leo Kruger has attacked Xavier Woods. No explanation is given but I feel like it has something to do with race.

Jack Swagger def. Sami Zayn
I pretty much missed Swagger’s WWE career, as I wasn’t really watching Raw or Smackdown when he was on the roster. But goddamn he put on a hell of a show with Zayn, and was totally game to help get him over in this match. The finish was stupid, though it does help put heat on the Zayn vs. Bo Dallas feud. I wish we could have gotten something with a little more oomph to bring it home, but I can’t complain about the 15 minutes that preceded it. ***¾