The New Day (Big E/Kofi Kingston) vs. Cesaro/Tyson Kidd, WWE Payback (5/17/2015)

This was a Best Two of Three Falls match for the New Day Classic’s WWE Tag Team Titles.

As usual, one of these matches in the WWE never quite gets the time it needs in order to stretch out and be all it can be. Fifteen minutes or less is not enough for three falls, and like so often is the case with matches like these in this company, it feels like a lie. A stipulation shoved into post production, with two nearfalls having a CGI three count added in. As always, it’s a classic example of the WWE insisting on only ever doing things one way, with the changes only ever being purely cosmetic. It’s a three fall match only in the sense that there are three falls, not in terms of tone or length or any noticeable difference to the match compared to past iterations.

As is often the case though, it doesn’t quite matter so much when motivated and talented wrestlers get a hold of fifteen minutes of pay per view time.

That goes doubly so for an all-time great like Cesaro.

Even if this doesn’t hold a candle to the Usos vs. Wyatt Family match from ten months earlier with most of the same issues — as Cesaro isn’t as great here as Harper was there, and for WWE project guys, 2014 Usos are better than 2015 New Day bell to bell — it works for the same admirable reasons. Talent being too good to deny and caring too much to have an average match, and succeeding where they can and while they can.

Again, that largely means this is the Cesaro show. Kofi and Big E are not natural babyfaces and so this first year of the New Day run where they work heel is far more lacking than the rest of their time together in the ring. Some people can reverse engineer it after so long on the other end and some people are just naturally one thing. Kofi Kingston and Big E are the latter, so it’s largely on Cesaro and Kidd to lay the foundation before the gifts of the champions can be best utilized in a second half sugar rush. However, short of the John Cena US Open, there is no better show on the main roster at this point and Cesaro lifts all the boats around him. Kidd has some bright ideas, and Cesaro can plug the power of Big E and Kofi as a generic flyer into just about a million different things, all different from the previous meetings. It’s all candy, but it’s good candy.

The brightest spot of this, of course, is a truly great finish.

It’s nothing NEW exactly. Kofi Kingston gets his ass kicked and saved, and when the ref is distracted, Xavier Woods switches places with him and he cradles Cesaro after a cheap shot to take the titles. The twin switch spot is an old one, and like any other old standard piece of pro wrestling nonsense, it’s not inherently good or bad. This is a fun one, firstly because it’s been long enough since it was last seen in the WWE that it provokes a real reaction.

Secondly it works because it allows everyone to go online and accuse the referee of being a racist in one of the few true wonderful bits to come out of the WWE in 2015. Perhaps second only to Rusev throwing a fish.

Unfortunately, this would be the last match of any real note for Tyson Kidd anywhere. Everyone knows the story, it’s one of the big unfortunate injuries of the last decade, especially as he had finally started to get what he had been due for a long time since mid-2014. We never get a real blow off here, we never even get it again. It’s unfair, and it’s a worse version of the usual. It’s not that it got interrupted now by nobody in a decision making capacity being able to pay attention or having horrible opinions. The conclusion failed to appear this time not because of incompetence, but because of cruel and random chance. Nobody is to blame, there’s nothing to really be said or done about it, and we at least got these two delightful pay-per-view encounters.

It’ll be another year and seven months before Cesaro gets to go back and finally give this the sequel that it deserves, and thankfully by then, The New Day will be far more up to the task and in roles more befitting their bell to bell talents.

***1/4

Cesaro/Tyson Kidd vs. The New Day (Big E/Kofi Kingston), WWE Extreme Rules (4/26/2015)

This was for Cesaro and Kidd’s WWE Tag Team Titles.

It’s yet another WWE midcard pay per view match that succeeds as a direct result of a lack of complexity and of anyone getting in the way of the exceedingly obvious.

The New Day are new to being heels, and if we’re being super honest, never quite become great in-ring heels like they become great in-ring babyfaces a year or more later. That’s largely on Kofi, as Big E has impactful enough offense to make it work, but the solution is one they go to here. It’s just a fireworks show. They control a little bit, but mostly they’re using trickery and then letting the other team go wild.

Now obviously, there’s a reason this pairing works a hundred times better with that approach than with New Day vs. The Prime Time Players or New Day vs. The League of Nations (they call themselves The Lads) or whatever other WWE mediocrities come to mind.

Cesaro is the best.

He gets something of a greenlight here finally as a babyface, and it’s incredible. There’s a stench of failure on him that’s hard to write off after most of 2014, especially the last few months, but even then, it takes him all of thirty seconds of sustained offense to feel like a real ass Superstar. Tyson Kidd is also in this match and he’s great in this match, Big E is awesome in what he gets to do, but this match is Cesaro’s match. He has the most energy, he hits the hardest, he does the coolest stuff, he’s crisper than everyone, and just hoists the entire thing up upon his shoulder every time he gets to do a single thing. He takes the entire thing over, and the entire thing is so much better for it. He and Big E work especially well together, but he also returns a little to 2013 and still has a way of getting more out of Kofi at this point than anyone else can. A masterful performance as a hot tag and then in general from one of the all-time tag team greats.

Naturally, after a hot run of offense and a hotter run of nearfalls, Kofi schoolboys Cesaro with a handful of trunks to take the titles for the first time.

It’s not the most inspiring ending, but given that this feud will have one of the better finishes in WWE all decade and given that the match was still a blast, you really have to just take what you can get when a company that otherwise spends so much time being bad and stupid accidentally lets something loose like this.

***

Dolph Ziggler vs. Cesaro vs. Tyson Kidd, WWE Smackdown (11/14/2014)

This was a three way dance for Ziggler’s WWE Intercontinental Title.

First things first, while I CERTAINLY would never endorse piracy, IF YOU JUST SO HAPPEN to come across a non-Network/Peacock version of this ENTIRELY by accident, it’s another one of these great dual audio channel 2014 Smackdown files where if you just stick in the right headphone or mute the left channel, you can live the dream and watch a great WWE match without WWE commentary. These usually come from Sky, so it’s one of the only positive contribution the Brits have made to wrestling. You still have to deal with crowd_pop.mp3 every so often, it’s still pre-live Smackdown, but I think it’s worth this significant improvement.

Removed more from the absurd amount of hype this got at the time, this is a real easy match to like a lot. It’s not one of the best matches of the year, but like most times Ziggler and/or Cesaro got time in the last third or last quarter of the year, it’s one of the highlights of the WWE over that period of time.

It’s not especially smart so much as it is a great movefest with enough coherency to carry it forward, but not everything great has to be smart. It’s a well constructed and performed three way, getting the best out of a lot of the cuter three way elements by making them seem far less choreographed, with the elimination element helping it out a whole lot. It’s the one thing a three way dance has over a triple threat once the bell rings (beyond that, it has just about every logical advantage) if you do it right, and they absolutely did. Everything in the first period of the match is about who they want to get rid of first. Kidd repeatedly teams up with Ziggler early on, and later on in the period when Cesaro is in a situation to eliminate Ziggler, Kidd’s the one who breaks it up. On the other hand, Cesaro always tries to get Ziggler out, seemingly once again having tunnel vision with regards to his recent embarrassment. Ziggler is happy with anything, as a babyface champion should be. It’s a great little psychological boost to everything that they do, and the contrast does especially well for Kidd and Cesaro to differentiate between Kidd’s more pragmatic approach and Cesaro’s purely emotional one.

Of course, as the falls goes on, Kidd and Cesaro begin to team up more and more. It’s become something of a minor legend, that things clicked immediately and they both got paired up because of this. It’s not entirely true. I wouldn’t exactly say that it’s magic here. It’s a decent enough team, but the real thing is just that it’s two talented wrestlers on the same side of the aisle who needed something to do at the exact same time as the other. There’s only a few things they do together though, this always being a marriage of convenience. As soon as Ziggler can get the Zig Zag on Cesaro (the product of Cesaro once again getting too caught on something and Ziggler being much more ideologically agile), Kidd steals the pin and gets rid of him, real eager to take any glory he can find.

Another nice little thing about this match is that it’s the only glimpse we ever really get of Tyson Kidd as a singles wrestler of any stature in main roster WWE. He’s been good in NXT (both Redemption and Full Sail), good in weird little B/C show runs in 2011 and 2012, but this is the only time he ever got a shot at anything real. You can say whatever about the Intercontinental Title and it’s mostly correct, but with Ziggler in the middle of something of a hot streak, and it’s the highest profile singles work Kidd ever got near. Naturally, he’s great at this. It’s a truncated little run that they have, it’s not the greatest thing in the world, but there’s a lot to it. Kidd makes the match about outmaneuvering Dolph and thinking he’s always more prepared, so like any good babyface, Dolph proves him wrong in the end. Ziggler avoids something, one of those classic routines that’s just a step away from being too dance-fight-y but that hits just right, and gets the second Zig Zag of the match for the win.

It’s the rare match that’s both over and underrated, but one well worth your time if you can go into it without expecting some best-of-the-year level outing. As always tends to be the case with matches like this.

***1/4

Adrian Neville vs. Sami Zayn vs. Tyson Kidd vs. Tyler Breeze, WWE NXT Takeover Fatal 4 Way (9/11/2014)

This was for Neville’s WWE NXT Title.

It’s another of these matches from Peak NXT, where you don’t have the greatest amount of talent in the ring and they’re only allowed to do so much, but where it still works because it’s the last thing in WWE still working as it should. Hand in glove, as it were.

The match itself is fine. It’s great, barely. They keep a consistent enough baseline (the value of Tyson Kidd in a match like this, truly) that it never ever comes close to being bad, and at its high points, it absolutely whips ass. I’m vocally anti-three way for the most part, but a four way is much more interesting to me. If you’re going to have a multi-man sort of a match, you’re better off with more people. Four is better than three, and based on Elimination Chamber matches, six tends to be a lot better than four. The thing is that there’s just more moving parts. When a match is all about moving parts, the match tends to be better served with more pieces to rotate in and out, not only so you never have anyone chilling outside the shot for way too long, but also so the action itself never gets boring. And of course, the match is made up of four good wrestlers. I would struggle to call Breeze great, and both Kidd and Neville are on that sort of low end or borderline area, but the match is another example of how to do as much as possible to put these people in positions to succeed. A novel concept or the WWE, even if it happens on its insidious little boutique imprint.

What helps a lot, once again, are the characters. There’s nothing all that fancy to it, but there’s a nice split that goes a long way towards always keeping things interesting. We have two heroes and two villains, but one hero, Neville, is a lot more calculating in a sort of Bret Hart-ish way, whereas Zayn is all fire and guts and heart. The villains are also pretty similar, both being opportunists, but one being older and wiser and sneakier in Kidd. It’s even easier to play around and shuffle all these pieces around in different ways if they’re all as well defined as these four are.

In the end, Zayn goes on a beautiful spree. He does all of his biggest stuff in a row and keeps the three separated, only for Neville to pull the referee out when Zayn has Kidd beat. It’s a WWE four way, it’s not illegal, but it’s certainly this big moment for the Neville character. Not being half as great as an in-ring babyface as Zayn is (not an insult), he’s fallen short in a 1:1 comparison, but adding in this element that he’s willing to bend a little as opposed to the morally rigid and upstanding Sami Zayn is fresh and much needed. Zayn is initially too shocked to immediately respond, and when he rushes out after him, Neville can quickly kick him down and hit the Red Arrow to keep the title.

Sami Zayn does everything right, keeps his focus and unloads when it counts the most, only to one again come up short. For once, Zayn doesn’t do anything wrong. There’s no mistake he makes, it’s not even about Neville being stronger or faster. He’s just willing to do something Zayn isn’t. The question now becomes not only if Sami can win the big one, but if he’s willing to do what it takes to do so.

It’s one of the best stories the WWE’s told in the last twenty years, and it’s this match that takes it from a generic-but-exciting chase into being something a lot more interesting.

***

Yoshi Tatsu vs. Tyson Kidd, WWE NXT (7/26/2011)

This was an Action Figure Leg Necklace On A Pole Match.

To recap: at some point, these two began feuding. Yoshi Tatsu had taken to showing off his first ever action figure as a point of pride. As a shitbag jealous heel, Tyson Kidd broke off the leg of the action figure and stomped on it, before taking the leg for himself. He put it on a necklace to taunt Yoshi Tatsu, and this match happened.

It’s a good match. The gimmick is ridiculous, but they treat it 100% seriously and work hard, so it does something for me. A lot of big bumps from both guys and a few real hard kicks from Kidd. Tatsu grabs onto the leg on a pole as Kidd hits a top rope German Suplex, and Tatsu has regained his toy’s leg and wins as a result. Very silly and incredibly charming. This isn’t one of the best matches of the year, so much, but I really wanted to remind everyone that this happened, that there was a feud over a broken action figure.

More than that,  really wanted to talk about the NXT Redemption season, or as you may know it, the NXT forever season. It won’t show up on any lists, I don’t think, and I don’t anticipate writing about any of the matches that happen on it, but any look back at wrestling in 2011 and 2012 would be woefully incomplete without discussing one of my favorite parts of that period of time.

The first four seasons of NXT all lasted four months or less. NXT Season Five lasted over fifteen. The first four seasons of NXT had winners. This season simply had a survivor, as when NXT turned into NXT in June 2012, Derrick Bateman was the only contestant still on the show. Even he wasn’t an original contestant, instead joining the cast in WEEK SEVENTEEN to replace Conor O’Brien when he was eliminated. Nobody replaced the other eliminated contestants. The aim was nebulous at best, with the winner (which never came) being promised the chance to pick their own pro for Season Six, with the caveat that it was full of former competitors from the previous seasons. There was never a season six (or a movie). This simply wound up going on forever, and at some point, the concept of these men having a Pro or this being any sort of competition was forgotten about.

Instead, it was a show where everyone there (with the exception of our heroes…keep reading) seemed to hate being there, and it eventually made everyone insane. Tyler Reks and Curt Hawkins feuded with General Manager William Regal and tried to get traded, only for him to make them janitors for months on end instead, which somehow dovetailed into a screwball caper involving Matt Striker being kidnapped for a month. The Prime Time Players formed at some point, feuded with The Usos for an indeterminable stretch of time, and were traded to the “main” roster for no real reason, but not before they briefly had tensions over the romantic affections of Tamina Snuka. Tyson Kidd and Michael McGillicutty had a feud over a.) failson Michael being mad at Kidd being friends with other second generation guys just because he grew up with the Harts, b.) what it means to be a failson, and c.) Michael stealing Kidd’s wife’s panties and smelling them. Vladimir Kozlov got super into planking in the summer of 2011. Trent Baretta had a run on the show and, along with Kidd, had one of those random C-show three boy runs that people in WWE stumble into sometimes.

The highlight was a six month plus romance quadrangle involving Derrick Bateman (aka EC3’s shitty dead cousin), Maxine (aka Katrina of Lucha Underground, with Regal occasionally referring to her as the devil in a great piece of accidental fanwank), Johnny Curtis (aka Fandango), and Kaitlyn (aka Kaitlyn). At some point, the evil Maxine dumped charmingly stupid hunk Bateman for hanging out with Kaitlyn too much, and began consorting with evil pervert Johnny Curtis (complete with unmarked grey van) to upset him. Johnny Curtis then began introducing a chloroform rag, kidnapping Matt Striker with it, and asking everyone in sight if they wanted to get weird. He turned a men’s restroom into his private office, and constantly alluded to also having a van office and a basement office. He and Maxine schemed either to get off of NXT together by doing…something?…to William Regal to force his hand, but were also incredibly willing to stab each other in the back at the drop of a hat, no matter who was offering, only for all of their schemes to backfire.

Sometimes Bateman and Kaitlyn went on capers to stop them, but sometimes plans just fell apart when they didn’t think of a second step after “chloroform Matt Striker and hold him hostage”. In that particular case, Curtis left Striker knocked out in an equipment box because Alicia Fox walked by and he was still holding chloroform, but when he couldn’t catch her, he went back and someone else had kidnapped Striker away from him, to be revealed later on to be part of Reks and Hawkins’ plot to get Regal to make them stop being janitors by blackmailing them into taking the fall, so Regal would be mad at someone else. Bateman and Kaitlyn freed Striker on accident when they found him tied up in a closet when looking for a place to make out, leading to Curtis and Maxine blaming it all on each other before Regal forced them to stay together as wrestler and manager, ensuring this by forcing them to be handcuffed together whenever Curtis doesn’t have a match.

None of this is made up.

It’s one of the strangest, most endearing, funniest, and best storylines in WWE history. It’s the best story of the 2010s that nobody talks about besides like three people I know who I know watched this nonsense along with me.

Naturally, like this season, it never concluded.

WWE found out about NXT being incredibly weird and original at some point after WrestleMania 28, and made it boring again, before any of that could reach a proper close. People were shipped off to brands, JTG and Hornswoggle got thrown onto NXT, and all of the weirdness gave way to the show become another version of WWE Superstars. Curtis, Maxine, Bateman, and Kaitlyn all sort of drifted apart, and the show just suddenly became this other thing. The closest we came to any sort of resolution was a pretty cold Bateman/Curtis match on one of the first episodes of Full Sail era NXT, and this was never about matches.

The legacy of NXT Redemption/NXT Season Five/NXT Forever Season is something like that, and like this match. It should not have worked. It was very silly, it seems almost designed to fail, but everyone involved tried their best and it succeeded, even while completely abandoning the premise of NXT as a competition, and occasionally, wrestling as a framework.

Instead, the show flowered without the burden of having to be on television and became about the concept of purgatory. Some people were trying to escape this Fallujah of professional wrestling by any means necessary. Others embraced where they were at, because you might as well, and got into the sorts of antics and romantic entanglement based storylines that I still occasionally think about today. It’s incredibly stupid, it had no point, no value, no relevancy, and it brought out the funniest and most creative sides of everyone who was willing to simply accept where they were at and have some fun.

NXT Forever Season wasn’t good, but being that it was as close as the WWE ever got to simply becoming a sitcom, it’s some of the best story work ever to come out of the WWE.