Note: Apologies for the lateness of this week’s NXT Redux. Our servers decided to eat the original NXT post that was scheduled for earlier in the week, but have no fear — we have a new version for you!
Hiya everybody, and welcome to another edition of my personal recap highlight of the week, the NXT Redux. In a show that I’ve consistently praised week after week, and generally find no faults with whatsoever, this week was no different. In fact, I count this as one of the strongest episodes in some time. It was a night of shenanigans in a couple of brilliant backstage segments involving Divas such as Tamina Snuka, Kaitlyn, (briefly) Alicia Fox, and Queen Maxine. And honestly that’s all I can say right now. If I mention what they were up to here, you all wouldn’t believe me anyways, so let’s just get to the video footage!
First up in tonight’s amazement, we head backstage to see the newly formed “KaitMan” (although I prefer to use the term, Batelyn) as they skip down the halls of New Jersey with their hands consensually locked together. Suddenly, they run into Island Goddess, Tamina, who seems to have returned home where she belongs, and that’s on the best show WWE produces. She states that she loves their fresh new look of love, claiming it reminds her of how the sun rises and the ocean sets. More specifically, it reminds her of termites mating in a coconut tree… I think I’m in love with Island Goddess Tamina and her random native comparisons.
She states that she hopes she can find her termite one day, while Kaitlyn reassures her that she will. The former NXT winner then dubs Derrick as being her termite, as the two leave and out pop Titus O’Neil and Darren Young. O’Neal gives us his finest impression of a more risqué Bill Cosby by stating how good Tamina looks. He tells her that he’s taken by his wife, but wants to know how come every time someone comes after her, the Usos have to interfere. O’Neal tries to set Darren up with her, but she seems uninterested. Suddenly, the Usos pop into the scene and claim Titus and Darren have no respect.
Darren asks them to back off and let Tamina make her own decisions, which sparks an Jey to side with me in the O’Neal/Cosby comparison! Jimmy tells Tamina that if she wants to spend her life going from JTG (story continuation!) to this fool, then he’ll let her be. He then sets up a match between he and Darren next and the two head out. Tamina ends the segment by dubbing it as a case of love and war, which leaves Titus telling Darren that he needs to get with Tamina down the line, but for now to focus on the match at hand.
Out at ringside, Josh Mathews gets a suspicious email on his phone that his car has been stolen! Egad! He leaves immediately and we head backstage to see Maxine and Dirty Curty standing by. She lets Curtis know that she has devised a plan to get Josh Mathews out to the parking lot so that nobody is out with Regal on commentary. This is happening in order for her to fill the void and finally get her on to a bigger brand with a United States television deal! She tries to tell him the plan, but the two overhear Josh talking to Matt and get into place. They are hiding behind boxes, so they can not see that it is in fact Matt Striker walking towards them instead of Mathews!
Striker heads forward and out of nowhere, Dirty Curty attacks him with a rag! Striker suddenly begins to fall asleep and lands in a nearby bin, as Maxine demands to know what the heck he’s doing?! Dirty Curty tries to tell her that she’s welcome, but Maxine claims this was not a part of the plan, wanting to know what he just gave to Striker. Dirty Curty then claims it was chloroform. She demands to know why he has chloroform, and his reply? “Why don’t I have chloroform?” Oh Dirty Curty, you creepy, creepy individual. Maxine can not deal with this right now and simply tells Curtis to get rid of Striker. Johnny then dumps his carcass inside the bin and shuts the lid!
Maxine orders Johnny to stay put and not leave him while she heads out to the commentary table, but he suddenly gets distracted by the lovely Alicia Fox. He walks up to her and asks how it’s going, and all she can do in return is hiss at him and go, “Ew”, before walking off. Curtis then follows her, presumably to get her into his van and lord knows what after that. Someone alert the Jersey police about this!
Back out to the ring we go, as Regal, not having seen the backstage segment, seems confused with what is going on. Maxine’s club hit then starts up as she heads over to the commentary table with a gift basket in hand! Maxine takes her seat and presents him with some lotions, as she administers the headset and asks how he’s doing. The music of Percy Watson hits as he steps out for the upcoming bout while Maxine tries to tell Regal what gifts she got for him. Sir Regal claims that he should feel special with this, which brings Maxine to state that she is very glad to be working for him.
(Note: skip to 05:05 to watch Maxine give William Regal a foot massage.)
(Proceed on to 09:58.) Percy Watson’s hand is raised in victory, but out at the commentary table something seems to be going down as Maxine is massaging William Regal’s shoulders and rubbing her hands through his hair. She then seems to believe that later he should relax because she will present him with a deep tissue massage! Oh, dear me…
Backstage we go once more, as Dirty Curty can be seen panting heavily in nervousness. He looks around, when suddenly Maxine pops up deeming that nothing went as planned and the whole night was ruined. She begins to order Curtis to get Striker out of the box, but he tries to avoid the question by making awkward small talk. She then ends up believing that he killed Matt Striker! Maxine asks if Striker’s in the box, before Johnny hops up and opens the lid to nothing but a ransom note!~ Maxine reads aloud: “We know what you did. We have Striker. We will come to you with demands.” Curtis claims that’s “weird”, but suddenly Kaitlyn and Derrick walk into the scene.
Curtis shakes both of their hands, as Maxine sparks the accusation that Kaitlyn has something to do with it. She looks into both of their eyes (since she revealed before that she has the power to tell if someone’s lying by the eyes of doom), but both seem confused as to what is going on. Maxine simply gets over the topic, as they deem her paranoid before backing out of the scene. Maxine goes off on Dirty Curty for him lying to her and saying that he would stay there the entire time, claiming the mystery person must have just slipped through his legs. Johnny doesn’t know what happened, and actually DARES to raise his voice at Maxine. If looks could kill, he’d be a goner… but it looks like he already is as Maxine amazingly shoves him ass first into the bin and storms off.
Thoughts: I really can’t believe the heights this star-studded show goes to. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, they pull out even more. I loved all of the segments for different reasons tonight. Tamina’s random island metaphors almost killed me just due to how random they sounded. Comparing Batelyn to termites in love? Discussing how she hopes to find her termite one day? Genius! I hope Island Goddess Tamina continues to grace us with her presence because god knows how much I love random things. The more random it is, the better! I want Tamina to show up next week in a coconut bra and hula skirt. Don’t let me down, I beg.
Maxine and Johnny are brilliant together. I was always a bigger fan of BateMax than Curtsine, but the segment tonight showed me that Curtsine does in fact work well when put in hilarious situations like this. Line of the night has to be when Johnny defended his chloroform by sarcastically asking why he wouldn’t have some. Maxine’s being all over Regal was hilarious as well, although the foot massage did kind of creep me out a bit. I felt like the segment was cut short at the end for some reason, and I watched it on the WWE.com player to see the same cut ending so it wasn’t just the YouTube video.
Nonetheless, A+ to everything those two took part in tonight. Hissing Alicia Fox was icing on the cake and I am BEGGING WWE to reveal the kidnapper to be Husky Harris in cahoots with Foxy. I’ve been pleading for those two to get together on screen for over a year now, and this is the perfect way to introduce it. Fox was simply used as the bait to lure Johnny away while Husky struck and took Striker to some evil lair for torture into giving him an NXT contract. Make it happen, WWE!
Altogether, I say it every week, and I’ll say it again: Words can’t describe how amazing this show is.
