I really enjoyed the main event, but the ending ceremony thing was so contrived.

James Storm just debuted at the NXT live taping.

What fraction of WWE fans will even care?

I have to imagine his name recognition is way less than Samoa Joe.

None of the other US wrestling companies are spending any money so it isn't like they are going to be paying him anything. Pretty smart to try and bring all those lapsed TNA fans over to WWE now that it doesn't cost them anything to do so.

The Full Sail crowd will care, and the perception of the wider audience seems to be if it's cool in NXT, it must be cool...

I'd rather have Storm on by books than some unknown, put it that way.

Storm isn't the greatest in the ring but he would be better than most on the main roster and can play various forms of his character well.

This is pretty interesting. Joe is definitely a much bigger name with a wider audience so it wasn't too surprising. He was also very popular before he was in TNA. Joe being called anything else would have been dumb but now they're also letting Storm keep his name/identity and billing him as a former world champion. This is definitely more of a sign that WWE have not only scrapped their snubbing of TNA made talent, they're acknowledging and embracing their accomplishments and in return showing respect to that wrestler's current fanbase.

When TNA was at it's peak around 2009 it was pulling in an average of 1.5m viewers a week. TNA had an amazing roster and guys like Storm, Joe, AJ, Roode etc were the most popular talent at the time. Their ratings fell dramatically when Hogan happened and focus switched from TNA talent to ex WWE talent. Eventually all of those guys left and so did most of the fans.

Now WWE's ratings have dropped and it seems like they've realised there's a lot fans out there not watching them while promotions like ROH and NJPW are experiencing growth in the west.

I wouldn't be surprised to see Aries pop up after his last taped matches air in TNA. I bet Roode is counting the days until he can get out as well.

edit: this^

I love bringing Storm in. Obviously can't use the beer drinking gimmick (Austin and the PG era), but has gone away from that lately and shown some versatility and an ability to change his character and still be effective.

Apparently he hasn't signed on full time yet. TNA heard about him being at the NXT Nashville show and offered him a much bigger contract.

edit: *a much bigger contract compared to his earlier TNA contract.

I thought TNA had no money. As much as I like Storm, there are other guys who have left (AJ) that you think they would have given the money too if they had it.

The best move for Storm might be to go forward with WWE even for less money. If it doesn't work out and TNA is still there, he can always go back. If he stays with TNA and they fail, he may not get another WWE shot.

Yeah, seriously. Also I agree with the second part of your post unless he plans on retiring in-ring within three years.

I've been trying to find a comparison for the NXT crowd and I think I finally found it. They are the wrestling equivalent to the St. Louis Cardinal fans. All kinds of pretentious, and I want to punch every single one of them square in the face

The brand loyalty WWE has created among usually hard-to-please "smarks" is pretty unbelievable. Fans literally chanting the name of the brand at shows seems like something straight from Stephanie McMahon's dreams.

That's the main thing that bugs me about the NXT crowd -- they think they're special because they like something "alternative," but it's still a WWE product. Enjoying it is obv fine, but the excessive enthusiasm makes it feel like they're getting played by WWE.

Shoot, the excessive enthusiasm sometimes make it feel like all of us are getting played by WWE. All it is is a place to hide talent from other organizations.

Speaking of pretentious...
You make it sound like you have to be a hipster to enjoy it so much. Some people are enthusiastic. If I was there, I'd probably chant to. I wouldn't start it but, come on. It's all in good fun and having a good time. I'm not going to sit on my hands like I'm in Japan and it's awful to chant things. I could even make the argument that chants are good because it shows something that the main roster can't do...entertain people and show people having a good time.

It's official.

NXT has become so mainstream, it's now cool to hate it and everything about it.

I'm all for people finding a wrestling show they really enjoy greatly. But I've seen people who think supporting NXT isn't supporting WWE, or even that if they follow NXT that will really show WWE and they will have to change Raw.

That's like saying supporting Diet Pepsi (or Mountain Dew) doesn't support Pepsi, and that buying Diet Pepsi is going to make them change original Pepsi.

Yeah, this is more what I was trying to say. Didn't mean to imply that people should feel bad for liking it or it's some hipster thing -- NXT is a very good product that has earned some fan enthusiasm through its quality, and obv chanting for wrestlers is fine. I was specifically talking about the "N-X-T" chants that treat it like it's some grubby hardcore gymnasium show when it's all a very calculated and corporate WWE-endorsed (and produced) alternative to Raw/Smackdown.

Maybe that comes off as pretentious; it's just something I've been thinking about a lot in terms of how WWE markets themselves to different groups of people, especially smarks who are often critical of the main product.

Ill try and go back to the special and pick out specific points, but the one I remember most as the "This is Awesome" chant before anything happened in the Sasha/Bayley match. It wasnt awesome yet so there was no need for the chant at that time.

In my opinion, the crowd at a wrestling show is like salt in a recipe. When the correct amount is added, it brings a whole new dimension of flavors to the recipe. When there isnt enough the dish is bland and when there is too much it takes over the dish and destroys it. The crowd at Full Sail and some other places is like unscrewing the top of the salt shaker.

Now that I think about it, wasnt there a "Super Dragon" chant at that show? If that was where it was there is another example.

It should.

Exactly... The NXT crowd just comes off as desperate morons, trying to be part of the show. The NXT product is so watered down now. Reminds me of a try-hard indy show. Not what it use to be before the Network, when it was shown on Hulu.

It wasn't awesome that:
1) We were getting Bayley vs. Sasha again
2) It was going to be a 30-minute Iron man match
3) It was main eventing a show and people were extremely invested in it
???

Seriously?

Somebody mentioned before that they were annoyed with the chant before Wyatts/Shield at EC. It isn't awesome that people are getting what many many people considered a dream match? Come on, man. I thought that specific chant at that specific time enhanced the match because you could tell that people were invested in it.

Did not like this week's episode much at all.

First off, if you hated the crowd during Sasha/Bayley 2, the opening segment with Bayley and Alexa was twice as bad. Not everything has to be a goddamn chant people. Shut the **** up and let them talk. (Full disclosure: this may have soured me on the entire episode)

Nia Jax really needs to change that outfit.

The battle royal ticked a whole bunch of boxes on my things I hate that they do in battle royals.

- Make it a kayfabe hierarchy list. I'm not saying have Elias Samson, Danny Birch, etc. win, but there's no reason the three jobbers have to be thrown out first. It's supposed to be an event with maximum randomness. Showcase that.

- Members of tag teams either turn on each other, or get eliminated together. Why is this necessary?

- Those sequences where wrestler B eliminates wrestler A, then immediately wrestler C eliminates wrestler B, and so on. Starting with Colin Cassady's elimination, I think they got up to wrestler G in this battle royal.

Even more annoying that all of that was Tyler Breeze. What the **** are they doing with him? If you're going to have Apollo win (a move I don't completely hate), why not have Tyler go over at Takeover?

Given the result of the Takeover match, in the battle royal they should have had Tyler in Apollo's spot, Joe in Tyler's spot, and Apollo in Joe's spot. You'd have Tyler as deserving #1 contender and a feud between two undefeated guys, one of whom beat the new #1 contender and the other turning heel by claiming sour grapes that he wasn't anointed with that honor.

Instead Tyler's in another useless feud that he's probably going to lose. Sigh.

Valid.

(I didn't watch. I just don't seem to keep up on the weekly NXT show these days since the consensus on it seems to be negative.)