WWE NXT R Evolution: Adrian Neville vs. Sami Zayn

MATCH: Adrian Neville vs. Sami Zayn for the former’s NXT Championship
PROMOTION: WWE NXT
EVENT: R Evolution
YEAR: 2014
RATING: TV-PG for violence
GRADE: Pass


I’m not what anybody would call an “smark” when it comes to professional wrestling. The only way I know about a wrestler’s popularity is through how many positive awards they have won from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (or at least have been nominated for). Whenever an award winner or nominee enters NXT, I’m always excited to see their debut whether it’s KENTA aka Hideo Itami, Bryan Danielson aka Daniel Bryan, or Kevin Steen aka Kevin Owens. Such was the case for the two NXT Championship contenders Adrian Neville and El Generico aka Sami Zayn.

These two wrestlers in particular have a lot in common. They’re both high-flying cruiserweights who defy gravity just for fun. They’re both technical geniuses when it comes to mat wrestling and martial arts. They’re both popular outside of the United States thanks to the advent of the internet. They both gained most of their experience in smaller promotions. Most importantly, these two ring warriors are the best of friends. There is one thing that separates them, however: prior to this match, Adrian Neville was a successful and long-reigning NXT Champion while Sami Zayn consistently lost important matches. So what does Sami Zayn do about it? Two things. He wrestles more aggressively and he puts his career on the line in this match.

The buildup to this match with Sami Zayn as the ultimate underdog was efficient enough to make Zayn and Neville’s feud worthy of another award from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. With all this pressure on both men, you know they’re going to have to deliver an exciting and unforgettable match. It can’t just be good; it has to be excellent. It has to launch someone into an early Hall of Fame nomination. It has to be a permanent fixture not only on the audience’s DVR’s, but also their memories. And goddamn, did these two over-deliver.

If there was any slowness in this match, it was brief, yet important when it comes to building further drama. The rest of the match was one fast-paced, explosive, deadly battle. We got to see both wrestlers use their favorite moves and make them look good all over again. Whether it was a spike hurricanrana from Adrian Neville, an exploder suplex from Sami Zayn, an over the top rope splash to the floor from both men, a diving outside corner DDT from Zayn, or a sit-out jackknife power bomb from Neville, you’re getting your money’s worth in this match.

These two men hurt each other in the most creative and death-defying ways possible. They flew through the air and slammed each other to the ground with earth shattering force. It was amazing the mat nor the ground had body-shaped holes in them afterwards with this cartoonish display of physics. And just like a cartoon, they kept getting back up after every painful shot.

While the action was certainly a thrilling aspect of the match, the drama was just as capable of bringing people to the edge of their seats. The NXT commentators and Adrian Neville prior to this match questioned Sami Zayn’s willingness to take shortcuts to win big matches. Sami was the ultimate baby face in that he never gave in to the urge to cheat in any of his matches. Even when it mattered the most, Sami stayed true to his moral code.

When the referee was unconscious for the first time in the match, Sami checked to see if he was okay. When the referee got knocked out again and the championship belt was introduced to the ring, Sami struggled with himself as to whether he should use it as a weapon while no authority members were looking. He ended up tossing the belt and winning the honest way: by T-bone suplexing Neville into the turnbuckle and finishing him off with the Helluva Kick. When Sami Zayn went for the final pin, he got the 1-2-3 that evaded him for so long in the match and the NXT Championship was finally his.

When Sami Zayn won the title, it was the greatest victory in his wrestling career. The entire NXT roster, both heels and baby faces, celebrated with him and hoisted him high on their shoulders. He even continued to do the right thing when he extended his hand for a frustrated Adrian Neville to shake. Neville held that championship for a majority of 2014, so it was understandable that he kicked Sami’s hand away. But that kick was only to give way to an even bigger show of sportsmanship: a hug. Batista once said it to Eddie Guerrero in 2005 before the latter died: friends don’t shake hands; friends hug!

The ring was clearing of NXT superstars, Adrian Neville among them. All that was left was for Sami Zayn’s other longtime friend Kevin Owens to come out and congratulate him. These two grew up together in Ring of Honor and the independent circuit. They even won the 2010 award for Feud of the Year from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Zayn and Owens did everything together. And then the unthinkable happened. Just when spirits couldn’t get any higher, Kevin Owens slammed Sami Zayn to the steel ramp and then power bombed his longtime friend against the edge of the ring, which is said to be the hardest part of the wrestling structure. Kevin Owens gave no further explanation for his actions while his best friend was wheeled out of the arena in an ambulance.

The high octane action and the mind-blowing drama come together to make a special match for NXT fans. They jumped out of their seats for the high flying moves, cheered like animals during the martial arts kicks, punches, and throws, cried like babies during Sami Zayn’s celebration, and cried even harder when Kevin Owens beat the crap out of him. Everything about this match was done to perfection by professional wrestlers with over a decade of experience. All of this hard work built up to this memorable moment. It will live within the fans forever, either as a haunting ghost or as an excited spirit.

WWE NXT

TITLE: WWE NXT

GENRE: Professional Wrestling

RATING: TV-PG for mild violence

GRADE: A+

If you follow the yearly Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards like I do, you would have seen that the award for Best Weekly Television Show in 2013 was WWE NXT. You know why it won that prestigious award? Because when it comes to professional wrestling, there’s only one way to describe WWE NXT: bullshit-free television. That means there are no goofy stunt doubles, no tyrannical authority figures, no cranky divas, and no ridiculous endings to otherwise good matches. You want to know what wrestling is all about? WWE NXT is your answer. It can be all yours if you purchase the WWE Network for only…come on, people, what is it? It’s only $9.99 a month!

NXT is supposed to be the training grounds for wrestlers and divas who want to be featured on WWE Raw and Smackdown, the company’s two flagship shows. Judging from the way these “rookies” wrestle, it looks like they’ve spent their whole lives training. For many of the wrestlers, this couldn’t be closer to the truth.

Sami Zayn is a high-flying technical wizard who wrestled all over the world. Tyson Kidd is the final graduate of the infamous Hart Dungeon and knows how to cripple his opponents inside that ring. Tyler Breeze is arrogant and self-serving, but his own high-flying style justifies his otherwise obnoxious gimmick. Adrian Neville is called “The Man Gravity Forgot” for a reason: because every time he flies around the ring or even does a ground move, it looks like he’s in outer space. Four kick-ass wrestlers who always put on five-star matches whenever they’re in the ring. In fact, they downright steal the show. But these are just the main-eventers of NXT.

Even the wrestlers who haven’t been doing it for quite as long don’t show their inexperience very often. Bull Dempsey’s wrestling career started in 2006 and he fights like a 300-lb. wrecking ball, smashing and bruising everyone in his path. Charlotte’s career started in 2012, but she has so much going for her already: she trained under her father Ric Flair (a two-time WWE Hall of Famer and 16-time World Champion), she’s over six feet tall and is built like a powerhouse, and she had quite possibly the match of the year in 2014 against Natalya (daughter of Jim Neidhart) to win the NXT Women’s Championship. Anybody else that needs mentioning? How about Baron Corbin, a seven-foot juggernaut who squashed CJ Parker in his first match, which is a difficult feat in and of itself. Let me put it this way: when Pinocchio does another Geico commercial where he’s a motivational speaker, his nose won’t grow when he says NXT wrestlers have lots of potential.

Professional wrestling gets a lot of crap these days for being “gay porn” or “a redneck soap opera”. WWE NXT is quickly proving those two slurs to be wrong. The wrestlers are awesome to watch in the ring. The storylines are believable and are therefore easy to sit through. The commentary team isn’t constantly at each other’s throats nor are they trying to make corny jokes all the time. Like I said before, WWE NXT is bullshit-free television. If you want to make a layman into a believer, show them a random episode from this weekly series. Or if you really want to put your best foot forward, show him or her one of the two-hour specials. Bottom line: I can’t picture Triple H or Stephanie McMahon referring to the NXT staff as “B+ players” anytime soon.