Welcome to NXT Future Five on Last Word On Sports, where each week we analyze the latest episode of World Wrestling Entertainment Network’s hottest program, NXT and rank the five performers who made the biggest impact. This week I’m covering for Adam Contant.

Show Overview

• Tribute to Dusty Rhodes: The American Dream’s career and life given a proper tribute after his unexpected passing.
• Enzo Amore, Colin Cassidy and Carmella vs. Wesley Blake, Buddy Murphy and Alexa Bliss: Enzo is quite entertaining. He really gives 100% on this gimmick. Cassidy doesn’t have to do much because like Diesel, Ezekiel Jackson and Lance Hoyt before him, “being tall” is doing something. Carmella doesn’t know Enzo is from New Jersey and attempts a Long Island accent instead. Blake and Murphy are devoid of any charisma. Blake putting his hair in pigtails must have been a suggestion from Billy “Cute Kipp” Gunn. Match took forever to get going, broke out into a pier six brawl and built to a hot tag to Carmella that got crickets. Colin showed he should have started the match because he basically destroyed the NXT tag champions by himself and set up the Rocket Launcher. Reminds me of the mid 2000s WWE Tag division. On Raw.
• Kevin Owens Video Package: Video package seeing the NXT champion go toe to toe with John Cena. Owens lost but attacked Cena after and hit him with the ring apron powerbomb. It’s a move that can take a guy out for weeks but Cena gets bruising and lives to fight another day. You know why? Because he’s John Cena. He’s the most successful WWE wrestler in the past decade. That’s why he survives. Stupid Wrestling Observer whining about how bewildering it is that Cena is tougher than Alex Riley.
• Samoa Joe Promo: Joe does a promo I feel he wrote himself because unlike another promo later, his eyes didn’t look like he was ready anything. Joe has always been an average promo at best but that’s not why anyone watches the Samoan Submission Machine.
• Finn Balor Pt. 1: Video covering the start of Finn Balor’s career in preparation for NXT in Tokyo on July 4. Amazing how early he started his career. They discuss how he helped start a pro wreslting school in Ireland when he was only 20 years old, which is where Becky Lynch came from. At this point it didn’t feel so much like a video about Balor and a video about Becky Lynch. I think the students at Full Sail forgot who they were documenting. There was no doubt that Balor was going to be a star through the early footage, which might be the best part about it.
• Charlotte vs. Cassidy: Cassidy gets a jobber entrance. At first I thought it was Cherry Bomb, then I thought it was Taeler Hendrix. Cassidy was alright, much better than Bliss or Carmella from earlier. Charlotte is clearly the star. She stood out for me out of everyone with her attitude, look and (some of) her move execution. The match was quite rough. Charlotte wins with the Figure Eight.
• Dana Brooke Promo: This is bad. Really bad. When you can see Dana’s eyes read something off camera so obviously, it’s time to stop scripting promos. Her delivery was bad, her attitude was weak, about everything screamed NOT READY aside from her hair, which is quite striking. Devin Taylor, the interviewer, didn’t look happy to be there. I’ve been there.
• Samoa Joe vs. Kevin Owens: Owens comes out first which infuriates me. Even if it is a non-title match, the champion should come out last. This is an eternal battle for me. Despite Owen’s matches with Zayn and Cena being much better, I preferred his heeling in this. He ran away from Joe, he applied headlocks to kill the crowd, he did all of the little things you need to do in order to get the big things over. Crowd definitely supported Joe which was nice to hear in an Owen’s match. Ugly Urange, ugly ref bump. Match gets thrown out but they keep trying to brawl with security attempting to separate them. The definition of “this is a big match we don’t want to give away yet”. The spectacle of seeing these two monsters clash is more exciting than the outcome.

I don’t usually cover NXT as that’s Adam Contant’s job and I’m filling in for him this week. For those who know me, I’m not a fan of the WWE product but I follow because, well, I’m the head of the wrestling department. It’d be like being the head of the baseball department and not following the New York Yankees. That said, I tried to keep an open mind on this show as a development ground for new talent and not on the same level of something like WWE, TNA or Lucha Underground.

The biggest issue I ended up having wasn’t so much the talents but the people running the show. I feel the Finn Balor vignette went way too long and was taken over by Becky Lynch. I think the opening mixed tag match also dragged too long and could have used some serious work by the road agents. Finally, the main event was good at moments but felt like a house show match. The ending (can you see a trend?) dragged on. It felt like something was missing and they were trying to produce around it, allowing the show to linger too much. It made it hard to focus or concentrate.

The highlight of the night ended up not being something on the show but something on Twitter. My friend Joel was watching with me and tweeted at Enzo Amore because he had “LIFE” tattooed on him in a way like there was supposed to be something else said. The exchange was, well, here you go.

“@holoskoj: @WWEAaLLday21 did u forget to get the thug half of ur stomach tattoo? Whats up with that?” Not a thug, just a big fan of life.

— Enzo Amore (@WWEAaLLday21) June 18, 2015

Can’t teach that.

The Future Five

5. Big Cass (Last Week – Not Ranked): I struggled to think of five people I really felt stood out and almost gave it to the other Cassidy on the show. That said, Colin Cassidy cleaned house quite well and I felt he looked far more threatening and clean in the ring than anything I’ve seen from Baron Corbin. He’s more Lance Hoyt than Kevin Nash (heck he’s not even on Test level yet) but I loved his big boot. Never leave Enzo, my man.
6. Samoa Joe (Last Week: 1): Joe looked like a star in NXT, which is exactly how he should look. His theme music was… not what I was expecting for a star of his level. I doubt it’s going to last if he ever goes up to the main roster. If he made any big argument last night it was that he’s the number one babyface on the roster. That said, I think at some point he slowed down considerably in the match. His punches to Owens at one point felt in slow motion.
7. Kevin Owens (Last Week – Not Ranked): Kevin Owens meteoric rise through the NXT and WWE ranks has been unlike anything we’ve seen since The Shield and it’s not hard to see why. Owens is a smart wrestler in the ring and is starting to catch on that the more high flying and high risk moves he does, the less he stays on track as a top heel. Owens reminded me a lot of JBL in that he talked big and backed it up when taking advantage of his opponent, but definitely looked vulnerable when he lost the upper hand. I gave him the edge over Joe just for “Headlock City”, though I feel like 90% of WWE fans don’t understand why a heel would do a headlock.
8. Enzo Amore (Last Week – Not Ranked): I wonder how much time Road Dogg spends with Enzo in NXT because he’s a splitting image of Road Dogg in his style and attitude. Amore is more Jersey than the D-O-Double G but from the shuffle punches to being a babyface in peril for spending too much time in the ring, Enzo Amore could have a long career just on his charisma and personality. He isn’t anything special in the ring but being smart is all he needs to be.
9. Charlotte (Last Week – Not Ranked): While Sasha Banks is the BOSS of NXT Women, Charlotte stands out as a future star more than anyone on this week’s show. While Owens is already onto bigger and better things on the WWE roster with Cena and Joe is already established, Charlotte feels like a breath of fresh air for what the WWE is supposed to look like in years to come. When it comes to bright futures, nobody is so blinding like the 29 year old from her name sake.

Final Thoughts:

This episode had quite a bit of purpose. Enzo and Big Cass needed a win over the NXT tag champions without the titles on the line. Charlotte needed to look strong before either moving to a feud with Dana Brooke or heading to the WWE main roster. Owens and Joe needed to sell the show without giving too much away. Finn Balor needed to be built up as the “next guy” in NXT. I think they covered all of these things but with mixed results. However, the main point of NXT is development and even if a guy or girl didn’t develop significantly, they all come out wiser than last week.

Adam will be back soon to cover the show he waits with baited breath every week to watch. For me? Can’t say the show did anything to make me feel like watching next week is a necessity.