Well folks, Christmas has come early around these parts because not only did the WWE deliver a Divas match on NXT tonight, but yours truly gets to put on her NXT hat and bring you a Redux one more time! On tonight’s episode, season four pro, Maryse, and her pro boyfriend, Ted DiBiase, teamed up with their rookie, the beast of a man known as Brodus Clay, to take on the team of Chris Masters, his rookie, Byron Saxton, and a mystery Diva partner of their choosing. Lets take a look at how all of this played out!
The abortion of a theme song, “I Come From Money”, begins to play as the main event gets set to take place. Maryse and Ted make their way to the ring, arm in arm, with Brodus trailing behind them. The happy couple are chatting as they enter and get set, and Brodus just looks scary. Once their music fades, Christ Masters’ theme starts to play and he walks out with Saxton. They head to the ring and stop at the apron waiting for their mystery partner. It doesn’t take long for the music of the WWE Divas Champion, Natalya, to hit and she is greeted by a nice reaction and kisses to her hand from both Saxton and Masters. Talk about charming (especially Saxton with that million dollar smile)! Josh Matthews and Todd Grisham go over the rules for a mixed tag match while Nattie plays to the crowd. The bell finally rings.
The Divas kick the match off and of course, Maryse starts her trash talking. I’m not expert or anything (really, I am) but I’m pretty darn sure Maryse just told Natalya to get to steppin’! The former two-time Diva’s Champion throws her hand up in Natalya’s face and smacks her in the forehead! The current champ doesn’t take to kindly to that as you can well imagine. She tries to attack Maryse, but the French-Canadian quickly gets to the ropes and forces herself between them. Natalya is unable to touch Maryse, so she scoots over to the other side and heads down to the floor. Maryse thinks she’s being clever and begins to flip her hair, but Nattie surprises her and goes on the attack. She slams Maryse down, scurries back into the ring, and locks her arms around the waist of her opponent. Maryse tries to fight back, but Natalya is proving to be to much to handle. The savvy champ tries to turn Maryse over for the Sharpshooter, but Maryse claws her way out of it and crawls to her corner. She makes the tag to big ole Brodus Clay!
With Brodus officially in the match, Natalya has to tag out. So she does and in comes the former ECW color commentator, Byron Saxton. Brodus forces Saxton to the ropes and clubs him in the chest. To me, that seems like it would really hurt. Brodus continues this onslaught with various power moves and clubbing blows. Saxton is taking a beating and he gets suplexed. Brodus stomps around the ring and is intimidating, and NXT fades to one of its mini-webmercial breaks.
(First Glama-Hart, and now webmercial. I crack myself up!)
Thirty seconds later the show returns and magically, Ted DiBiase has taken over. He has Saxton down in the mat in a headlock, and Natalya and Masters are trying to rally the crowd behind Byron. It works for a minute because Saxton is able to mount some offense and get in a position so Masters can tag in. The Masterpiece comes into the ring and he chest chops Ted into smithereens. The wealthy son finds himself hurting as Masters takes him down and goes for a cover. Ted kicks out after the two. After a few seconds, he gets a tag off to Brodus and Masters gets absolutely crushed in the corner. Brodus is a total monster, geeze. He throws Masters into the ropes, but the S4 pro is able to duck a clothesline attempt and catch the big man off guard with a chop to the chest. Masters tags in Saxton, but it’s pretty much a fail. Brodus shakes off attack by Masters and goes back to making Saxton his woman. Brodus goes to step on the second rope and just completely crushes Saxton’s throat with his foot. He goes for the cover, but Saxton does kick out. Brodus makes the tag and a fresh Teddy enters the fray. DiBiase continues his mat work on Saxton, but the rookie is game and he fights back. He flies over to his corner and makes the tag to Masters.
Masters works over Teddy for a bit before forcing him to the mat and going for a cover. He gets a near fall which prompts a shrilly little sqeaul to erupt from Maryse’s lips. DiBiase gets Masters in a position for ‘Dream Street’ but the former Intercontinental Champion (…surely he held that title, right?) is able to block it. Things go kind of crazy at this point but eventually they calm down and Ted is back to working over Masters. At one point, Masters takes a cheap shot from Brodus, which was delivered from the outside, and then has his throat snapped against the bottom rope. Ted finds a way to get the referee’s attention and Masters is left at the mercy of Brodus and Maryse. Both of them get their cheap shots in. Ted gets back to work and goes for another cover, but once again he only manages a two count. Saxton and Nattie rally the fans to get into the match and behind Masters, and the two men inside the ring take each other down with a double clothesline.
Both men stir around on the mat and they finally get into positions to make the tag. Saxton gets the tag from Masters and Maryse gets the tag from Teddy. Both come into the ring and Saxton seems hesitant to lay his hands on Maryse. The feisty blonde bombshell has no qualms, however! She tells Saxton to bring it on and then she slaps the shit out of him. Natalya has seen enough and takes matters into her own hands. She takes out Maryse and the two women roll to the outside of the ring fighting each other. Masters and DiBiase go to break it up while Brodus tries to end the match against Saxton. He goes to the top rope and launches himself off, looking to hit a belly flop type of move on the chest of Byron Saxton. The smaller man is able to roll out of the way and with Big Brodus having the wind knocked out of him, Saxton capitalizes and gets the victory! Natalya and Masters run to celebrate with their teammate and Nattie even gives Byron a kiss on the cheek! The continue celebrating as a disgusted Maryse leaves her team. NXT fades to black.
Yay! It’s great to do a NXT Redux again because of course, it is my favorite WWE show. So far this season I’ve been loving Maryse as a pro. She’s not really done anything but suggest a make-over for Brodus and get yelled at by DiBiase, but it’s enough. As boring as Ted and Maryse are on Raw, I think they’ve been better on NXT. They’re always together on this show, naturally, and you get to see them interact a little more. There seems to be a genuine friendship there between the two and like we’ve seen on previous seasons, pros are not always completely in character. She looks like she’s having fun, and with the losing streak she’s been on since teaming with Ted, the poor girl needs some fun in her life. As brief as the encounter was tonight, the interaction with Nattie and Maryse was solid. Natalya can drag a good showing from a paper bag inside the ring, so of course she was able to get something fun out of Maryse. Maryse acted like she was going to die if Natalya put her in the Sharpshooter and her desperate reaction to get out of it was awesome.
I love the fact that Nattie was the mystery Diva. I finally feel like the WWE is making her title reign a big deal and it should be. Natalya has waited a long time for this moment and now it’s finally happening for her. She’s got a lot of great things going for it, and she’s getting a fresh new feud. After she’s done with Melina, I wouldn’t mind seeing her move on to a feud with Maryse. After all, Maryse won a WWE dot com poll by a landslide when they asked the fans who should challenge Nattie next. But of course, polls and whatnot are rigged and don’t matter (eye roll) so who knows? All I know is that 2011 could very well end up being a strong year for the Divas if the end of 2010 is any prelude to what’s to come.
As far as the rest of NXT goes, we had a Vickie Guerrero sighting during the Johnny Curtis/Jacob Novak re-match from a few weeks ago. For those who haven’t really kept up, Novak hinted around to having a crush on the official consultant of Friday Night SmackDown during a backstage segment with Vickie last week. Vickie’s boyfriend and Novak’s pro, Dolph Ziggler, was none to thrilled and warned his rookie to basically stay away from Vickie. Well during the match, the cameras cut to a backstage shot of Vickie watching the match on a monitor and reacting to Jacob Novak getting chopped by Johnny Curtis. After the match was completed and Dolph basically helped Jacob steal a victory, they showed Vickie looking extremely happy.
Hmmmm.
I don’t know where this is going and I’m not sure the WWE does either. I don’t see Curtis winning like Kaitlyn or even sticking around. But what I do see is Vickie bringing the rookie to SmackDown as her official hire or something, much to the chagrin of Dolph. I eventually expect to see some feud with Kaitlyn/Dolph and Vickie/Novak. That could very well be off base, but a girl can hope!
I reckon that basically covers everything. Nice Diva action tonight on NXT and a nice welcome back for me. Who knows when the next one of these things will be but until that time…. Cryssi out!
