He Was Better Than Bryan Danielson... And Now He's Long Forgotten
Even when making his ring entrance, his first ring entrance, his instincts pointed him towards a member of the crowd who had heckled him. He had no qualms about giving it back. He wasn't some sh*t-scared novice stumbling over variations of "I'm here to be the future". In a great touch, he established instant chemistry with the Miz. He put his arm around him, delighted to be paired alongside the next big thing.
In the ring, on week two, he did a decent job stooging for a Kaval ass-kicking and drew a pop for his finish (a cool cutter variation). On week three, he was told he had 45 seconds to "impress the world". He didn't quite do that, with a fairly rote speech about stuffing nerds in lockers, but his delivery was fantastic. He was the opposite of green on that microphone. Confident to a remarkable extent, holding the sense of belief that only the superstars exude, he looked destined to take over the world - and it's important here to again stress the context of what the wrestling world looked like in 2010. WWE was bereft of star-power outside of an ageing headline crew.
Mainstream trends hadn't yet shifted in the direction of weekly high-end match quality. WWE was knee-deep in the cookie cutter barren lands, and Riley - blandly handsome, moving with the same mandated pace as his peers and working the same non-distinct developmental style - nevertheless stood out. Deranged as it may read in 2023, he was everything WWE looked for in 2010.
He didn't impress the world, but he impressed Michael Cole - and his remit on NXT was to bury the entire show all the way to Hades. As Riley sought to maximise his minutes, he wouldn't stop talking when his time had expired. He knew that the idea was to bend the rules a bit. To grab the brass ring. Michael Cole approved, chuckling "He's like the Miz! A mic hog!"
In the infamous 'Talk The Talk' segment from which the world was gifted the schadenfreude joy of "moustache", Kaval was asked to cut a promo around the word "chicken". He bombed. He said he wasn't a chicken, quickly tumbled into mundane "I'm small but I have a big heart" territory, and then desperately sucked up to the crowd. The other promos weren't better. Riley however, smiling in the face of a hatchet-job, was given the word "pigeon". He came up with a half-decent catchphrase off the top of his head: "I am the rooster in this henhouse!"
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