2 Ups And 4 Downs From Last Night's WWE NXT (23 Sept)

Ups...

2. The Vaudevillains Shine

There are only two ups this week. It's slim pickings. Despite losing to Dash and Wilder in the quarter finals of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic (in a match that we didn't get to see), The Vaudevillains successful retained their championships last night, and did it with no shortage of style. The NXT audience have tried their best with Blake and Murphy, they really have. The "Come on Blakey, Let's Go Party" chants were hilarious, but ultimately there is nothing for the audience to latch onto with the hairy duo. They are a bit dumb, and occasionally look stupid, and that's it. With their charismatic manager, Alexa Bliss, being run out of the match early into the runtime, it just highlighted how much dynamism the pair lack when left to themselves. Having villains that the fans weren't inspired to hate hurt the match, but thankfully The Vaudevillains have personality to spare. English and Gotch's move-set is flashy, on-theme and innovative. Simon Gotch is constantly finding new ways to flamboyantly kick his opponents and Aiden English is slowly mastering the crowd-popping comeback sequence, his kip-up into a masculine flexing pose eliciting a "That Was Manly" chant from the fans at Full Sail. The Vaudevillains carried the match to a positive rating, and fans should cherish their title run while they still can, because one cannot hope but have apprehension should they be called to the main roster. Former champs The Lucha Dragons and the Ascension have blended into the background on Raw and Smackdown, and with The Vaudevillains' overtly cheesy gimmick, you have to doubt that the main roster writers will be able to handle the two strongmen without dumbing them down to comedic pratfallers. It makes me sad and afraid to picture English and Gotch in a backstage segment, advertising WWE's new range of action figures and ring play-sets. As they demonstrated last night, they are much better than that.