NXT Weekly Rankings & Evaluation
By George Chiverton, PWTorch specialist

January 18, 2012 - Week 46

Rookie: Derrick Bateman
This Week's Performance: 7
Gimmick: 7
Last Week's Rank: #1
Rank: #1

Comments: Well, it was a very weird episode of NXT, but Bateman, Johnny Curtis, and Maxine were definitely the highlights (apart from Cole, but more on that later). Bateman injected some life into the horribly awkward wedding skit and was generally entertaining in everything he did. That seems to be a similar theme in most of his work. Good stuff.

***

Rookie: Titus O'Neil
This Week's Performance: 7
Gimmick: 6
Last Week's Rank: #2
Rank: #2

Comments: Last week, I wrote that I thought Titus's gimmick as a bland face was tired already. Lo and behold, here comes heel Titus. The only problem is (although these are early stages) that heel Titus appears to be a similar degree of bland. However, I'm more than prepared to see what Titus produces. His match with D-Young was good, too.

***

Rookie: Darren Young
This Week's Performance: 7
Gimmick: 1
Last Week's Rank: #3
Rank: #3

Comments: Good match. Thats about it. Can we move on now?

***

Other Comments: Another formulaic week of article writing for me: Bateman - good, Young - bad, Titus - bland. I wonder if anything will shake things up in the future?

However, allow me to draw some positives out of this week. Micheal Cole as a heel is, on the whole, a dreadful decision for WWE's flagship shows, but, on NXT, I feel that he is a game-changer. Regal has always been good (and I was very glad he made it onto Raw this week), but he seems keen on enhancing the talent in a way that saw him miss out on the obvious.

Now, usually I would praise this; wrestlers should be enhanced by the commentators, but, in the case of NXT, Cole's straight-up bluntness and crudity of analysis (e.g. absolutely ripping apart poor Titus) was both hilarious and perhaps a good wake-up call for the Rookies. Sure, it was harsh, but I've been watching the show for many long weeks and I still found it funny. The fact that even Cole couldn't make me feel any compassion for Young or Titus should show they haven't been doing a very good job.

[Torch art credit Neal Obermeyer (c) PWTorch.com]

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