Eric’s Blog: Ranking the Season 2 WWE NXT Rookies (Week 4)

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A preview of next week's immunity competition...

Ugh, another keg carry? Seriously? Didn’t WWE pay attention to the backlash these stupid contests received last season and even consider learning from it? It’s gonna be my bad, though, when WrestleMania XXX in Madison Square Garden is headlined by Kaval & Ricky Steamboat, Jr. vs. Alberto Del Rio & Michael McGillicutty in beer pong. Anyway, this episode helped me knock my rankings from eight guys to seven, it solidified some of my beliefs, and it blew other opinions of mine out of the water.

1) Alex Riley. Even in losing, and even in losing to Kaval, Riley is still the best prospect for future WWE superstar out of the bunch, for all the reasons I continue to say each week.

2) Kaval. Glad they allowed Kaval to win a match and even gave his double stomp the Five-Star Frogsplash slow-motion treatment. Was that him who let out that banshee-like howl as he executed the Warrior’s Way? It sounded like a dying rabbit. He still brings experience and a uniqueness to the WWE table, which is good.

3) Percy Watson. Who can turn the world on with his smile? Who can take a nothing show and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile? This guy is priceless, and I was excited to see his extra-long pre-taped promo. In all honesty, I’d be surprised to ever see a guy like him with glasses like those on a poster for WrestleMania, but if that happened, it would be awesome.

4) Michael McGillicutty. His reaction to losing the keg competition and his sneaky spontaneous neckbreaker won me over this week. I still think he needs to lose the college-freshman-orientation hairdo and eventually turn heel, but he’s growing on me for sure.

5) Lucky Cannon. How he was able to move this far up my rankings is beyond me, too, but it’s more due to the faults of the next two guys, so I won’t spend too much time on this pretty lady with weak-ass forearms and white-trash drinking game experience.

6) Husky Harris. Baby Rotunda slips way down in my rankings after his poor showing in the ring this week. His selling was sad — he barely even flinched for MVP’s Ballin’ elbow, among other mistakes — and a lot of his offense was either tentative — did you see how long it took him to go for some of those nearfalls? — or just sloppy — when you suplex someone, you’re not also supposed to lie there, stiff as a board, for a full second; get your ass up. He spent almost a whole quarter hour picking up MVP by his head, and I think he got winded doing that. Now that I see a full-blown match out of him, I realize he has a lot of work to do.

7) Eli Cottonwood. You know, he has a couple of good big-man moves, and his timing is already improving — he was right on it when chucking Kaval out of the ring — but he needs to wrestle even more like a big man, which in part includes staying on his feet more (see: Diesel’s boot to the throat in the corner and not Eli’s kneeling choke maneuver) and standing up straight more often (if you’re 7-feet-1, don’t hang your head all the time; improve your posture, stand up straight and dominate!). His character is still more shoot-me-in-the-hallway creepy than money-drawing-early-Undertaker creepy, but that can be learned.

2 Responses to “Eric’s Blog: Ranking the Season 2 WWE NXT Rookies (Week 4)”

  1. Kirk Angel 2010-07-01 at 10:38 am #

    Poor MVP. I read a report that Ric Flair just finished applying the figure 4 on him that started at Royal Rumble ’08. And now Husky Harris is still working on picking up MVP by his head.

  2. stuntgranny 2010-07-01 at 12:56 pm #

    Haha, classic. -E

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