NXT Weekly Rankings & Evaluation
By George Chiverton, PWTorch specialist

December 7, 2011 - Week 40

Rookie: Derrick Bateman
This Week's Performance: 5
Gimmick: 7
Last Week's Rank: #1
Rank: #1

Comments: Well, he has the advantage of being the only Rookie that WWE seemingly cares about. Hence, he has the advantage of both a storyline and exposure. He was pretty good in promos, but, in the ring, the story was somewhat more contrived. He seemed to land right on poor Johnny Curtis's face when he came off the top rope, which was a very cringe-inducing moment. It's flashes like that that makes me think he's not ready for Smackdown (which appears to be where he's slowly heading). His match also literally had the crowd booing (for all the wrong reasons) which has to say something. It just wasn't great from Bateman.

***

Rookie: Titus O'Neil
This Week's Performance: 4
Gimmick: 3
Last Week's Rank: #2
Rank: #2

Comments: Poor. His match was dull, his promo turned the crowd against him despite it clearly being a babyface effort, and he did very little to achieve much. Shame.

***

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

Comments: Oh yeah, Darren was at the show wasn't he? Hmm. I can't recall him doing anything. Oh well.

***

Other Comments: I appear to be the only Johnny Ace fan in the world at the moment, but I absolutely love the man. His voice is hypnotic, and his greatest strength is that he recognizes his faults as well as his strengths. The parody of himself, e.g. when he gave John Morrison the future endeavors on Raw a couple of weeks ago, was amazing. Just amazing. And the way he pushed Rey Mysterio off the microphone this week was perfect: patronizing, arrogant, and heat-drawing to the max.

On the other side of things, how on earth during a dragging three-hour Raw was there not space for a 30-second squash for Brodus Clay. I'm agitated by his late arrival.

One final note - Masked Kane vs. John Cena may be the most genius set up to Rock vs. Cena that WWE could have come up with. Attitude Era fans have been desperate for Kane to return to the Big Red Machine persona that was so prevalent pre-2003. These are the same fans who have been asking for The Rock to return and are now the standard-bearers for Team Bring It.

Kane is, in essence, an Attitude Era star. However, his more recent feuds with Edge and Mark Henry moved Kane's persona away from the Attitude Era and towards the Cena Era. His return with the mask shows a return to the Attitude Era Kane; the Kane that all Rock fans have been dying for. The clash of the generations Rock vs. Cena promises can now be previewed by Cena vs. Kane. Perfect set-up and well-played by WWE.

[Torch art credit Grant Gould (c) PWTorch.com]

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