NXT Weekly Rankings & Evaluation
By George Chiverton, PWTorch NXT specialist

Before I forget, I've set up a Twitter page exclusively for my wrestling interests as frankly you don't need my personal life on my timeline and personal life people treat wrestling like plague. Hence @PWChiverton is open for business. Feel free to follow, message, and generally give me some feedback.

NXT Evaluations - Episode: July 4, 2012 - Week 3

Down to business: NXT firstly contained a noticeably thinned-out audience this week, which perhaps detracted from the atmosphere especially when compared to the first two weeks of the new series. Hopefully the lesson is learned to reign in the tapings from three shows to two and perhaps a dark match. A majority of the smaller crowd was still hot, though, so credit for that.

- This week opened with a match between Paige and Sofia Cortez, who are weirdly two Divas I know my fair share about. Sofia, on ring introduction, was a complete unknown, but it turns out she is Ivelisse Velez from the most recent series of Tough Enough. You know, Ivelisse? Okay, it's not a name that springs to mind, but to jog your memory, as she was the promising and well-traveled blond wrestler who was injured by Alicia Fox's sister. Yes, that one. I know, it's so obvious. Paige, on the other hand, is a British Diva who I saw under the name Britani Knight wrestling her mother Sweet Soraya. Soraya has been a mainstay of British Women's Wrestling, so Paige could not have better training, in my opinion. She's talented, beautiful, and British. I didn't know that was possible.

The match betweeen the Sofia and Paige was very strong, indeed, and likely one of the better Divas matches WWE will put on all year. Both competitors are prize talents and their part in NXT certainly for me indicates WWE is beginning to come around to the idea that Women's Wrestling (with the emphasis on "wrestling") is much better than Women's "Train to be a Catwalk Model but learn an armdrag"-ing. I sure hope so. On specifics, Paige is very strong and served as the dominant of the two Divas. She hit some wicked chops and slaps that got the entire crowd ooing and ahhing, with some of them even wabloobaing. As for Sofia, she is athletic, agile, and nailed a wicked-looking wheelbarrow DDT to put Paige away. The move was executed perfectly, with it looking brutal while actually being perfectly clean and professional. It was super, as was the match. A great debut for both women.

- Up next was Camacho, with Hunico, against Seth Rollins. Camacho is at current in a state of flux for me, as he needs to move on from crony before being considered seriously. Having said that, he works well as an enforcer for Hunico. My biggest problem with Camacho is not his fault, it's WWE's. He's symptomatic of WWE's issues with race and Samoans over the years. Allow me to explain: given that Camacho isn't white or black, WWE believes (as they did with Yokozuna, for example) that his racial identity is basically interchangeable to suit their needs. It always makes me uncomfortable seeing him wearing the big sunglasses and hat to cover up his identity; he deserves better. The sooner this is addressed, the better, in my opinion.

As for the match, he was good, although there was no denying that Rollins was the star. Camacho did a much better job than Jiro emphasizing that stardom, though, and had some decent offense. Rollins was great with Jim Ross and Byron Saxton doing their best to elevate the talent on show. The words "C.M. Punk" (if you count C.M. as a word) were used on two occasions, which can only be a good thing at this stage of his WWE career. The match finished with a standard beat down by WWE's version of "Mexican America" and a run-in from Bo Dallas, which indicated to me that storylines are starting on NXT; that's a strong positive for future weeks.

- Following was Corey Graves and Jake Carter vs. C.J. Parker and Nick Rodgers. I am sorry to say I know nothing about Rodgers, and he took a single move in the match before heading to the back. So, little to be said there. Jobber #2 Parker is marginally more familiar as a young athletic guy who has served as a happy-go-lucky wrestler with a fun Puerto Rican style in FCW. Yet to come from him for sure.

The vocal points were Graves and Carter, who were impressive on debut. I only saw one match a piece from them in FCW, but their hard-hitting style combined with a cocky but edgy personality is the right blend of believable but not dull, given Graves's look and Carter's back story. Graves is heavily-tattooed and eye-linered up to the point of intimidation but not campness. Perhaps the Ascension could take some tips. Carter is the son of Vader and, in the words of Jim Ross, "Thank God he got his mother's looks." The guy is talented and executes moves in a way that is certainly reminiscent of a much bigger man. Well-trained men make good wrestlers, and Carter shows a lot of promise to prove this point.

- Next was Kassius Ohno's (Chris Hero's) debut, which came with a nice video package that you could sense Hero has practiced a million times in the mirror. It paid off and his match was equally good paired against Mike Dalton, who is Ziggler-esque in both look and bump-taking ability. The main thing the match aimed to get across was Kassius's ability to knock out his opponent. Also, his finishing spinning elbow was standard Hero brutality and had the audience Woobaloobaing as loud as Paige did earlier in the night. His post-match promo (which Ohno first delivered in FCW a few months ago) was a reminder of how genius his name is (initials K.O. and Oh No! being his last name). You know Hero and now you know Kassius. I hope he joins the main roster soon.

- Bateman vs. Mahal happened. Bateman was better, but lost. Let's move on.

- The final match of the evening was a six-man tag team with Teddy Long booking. Rollins, Rotundo, and Kidd took on Hunico, McGillicutty, and Camacho. Rollins and Kidd were as good as ever, and Rotundo had high-energy, although came off the most inexperienced with a slight botch here and there taking the shine off a good performance. The match was fairly bread and butter and this article is already too long, so I shall end by saying hopefully these six combine again in the future. They are all talented ring technicians who benefit from each other's presence in the ring.

NXT is good. This is good. I am ready for next week. See you then.

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