Rhea Ripley vs Toni Storm - NXT UK Women's Championship
Added 2024-09-12 15:00:08 +0000 UTCWatch: https://streamable.com/3mru6x
Comments
One correction: it was known at least since June 2019, that AEW's Wednesday Night Dynamite would be airing on Wednesdays. The move to switch NXT from the WWE network to air on TV and curiously on Wednesdays 2 weeks before Dynamite's premiere was the initial counter-programming. AEW didn't want this and they had no control about this. But it helped WWE to "lose" less viewers because B&G fans would probably already be into this TV version of B&G, including the new 2 hour format instead of just one.
yeahokgood
2024-09-14 23:00:23 +0000 UTCIt’s taken me an hour and a half to watch this match.
Steamed Ham Champion Dillon Haggett
2024-09-14 16:55:03 +0000 UTCNXT B&G was WWE bringing in the best indy wrestlers (Sami, KO, Gargano, Adam Cole, Nakamura etc) and presenting them on WWE TV. Back then B&G was on Wednesday, than AEW started up and put Dynamite on Wednesday directly against NXT B&G, AEW was presenting all the best indy wrestlers and so basically was taking the talent that NXT would have gone after originally. Also AEW started destroying NXT in the ratings each week. So they got rid of B&G and decided to move NXT to Tuesday so they didn't have to compete against Dynamite and decided 'rather than fight with them for the best indy talents, lets focus on grabbing college athletes in other sports and training them at the PC to be wrestlers and make them the focus of NXT' So I think that's why 2.0 never caught on as much, the big selling point used to be 'You never know what huge indy star from the past decade could show up next' and now it's a bunch of newbies no one has a built in connection or excitement for and they have to really build their name from the ground up.
Zach Faulkner
2024-09-13 15:11:02 +0000 UTCIn addition to what everyone else has said about NXT Black and Gold era to 2.0, B&G was HHH's first foray into being in charge of an entire show. The independent scene was booming in the mid 2010s and HHH started bringing those guys in (Gargano, Ciampa, Adam Cole, Keith Lee, EC3, Andrade, Asuka, Shinksuke, Samoa Joe, Rhea, Toni, Ricochet, Bobby Roode, Aleister Black, sooooo many more) and the in house talent was so unique. Guys we'd never thought we'd see in WWE were getting a shot on a high quality show that felt totally different from the main roster. At that time, NXT was on Wednesdays, and when AEW put a show on Wednesday, Vince wanted to really see NXT wipe them out in ratings. A mini war so to speak. NXT didn't win in Vince's eyes, so they moved to Tuesdays, then HHH had a legit medical emergency and was out for months so Vince took over. He started moving people around, firing people, changed the philosophy to bringing in unknown atheltes from other sports, and one of the first things he did was rebrand to 2.0 w the bright colors and light hearted presentation, and turned it into a mini main roster since he was in charge of it. That drove everyone away I think. When HHH took over again, he rebranded yet again to what it is now, which is a giant upgrade to what Vince was doing, but it all left a bad taste in everyone's mouths I think. I still haven't gone back yet, but I do see a lot more that I'm interested in than before, I just haven't made time. I think I will eventually.
Nate Cruz
2024-09-13 03:16:51 +0000 UTCJust realized Rhea’s big stomp she does in her entrance is inspired by Mitch Lucker a legendary deathcore vocalist that unfortunately passed away in 2012
Brett
2024-09-12 22:18:08 +0000 UTCIn terms of NXT Black and Gold / NXT UK being looked back on fondly: NXT B&G might have saved my wrestling fandom, at least in terms of being highly interested in it. I was a hardcore fan through the 90s and into the 2000s. I started to become a more casual viewer through the 10s though. RAW was generally pretty bad and Smackdown was bleh at best usually. The vast majority of weeks I'd just skim through the results or possibly watch the shows condensed on Hulu or highlights on Youtube. As NXT B&G picked up steam I started to get interested in wrestling again and I'd watch it in full weekly. In the same way the main roster is now, it was a refreshing take on wrestling in the "big leagues." To this day Asuka is one of my favorite wrestlers and that started with her NXT run. As B&G was happening, I looked forward to seeing Adam Cole and Johnny Gargano more than than anyone on the main roster save Brock. I didn't watch UK as much, but I'd go out of my way to see Walter. I can't speak for everyone, but I gotta imagine a lot of people had a similar experience. It wasn't that I didn't like wrestling anymore. I just got disillusioned with the way things worked on the main WWE shows and NXT during that period was just what I needed.
John Cowheel
2024-09-12 21:06:21 +0000 UTCthe changes from black and gold to nxt 2.0 was in black and gold it was mostly veterans and already established guys from the indie scene, 2.0 was WWE getting former athletes from other sports and training them in house. From that the match quality and promo segments obviously took a dip. It felt awkward at first, but now its grown a lot even over the past year and its not a stretch imo to say its the best weekly show
Jayshawn Robinson
2024-09-12 17:06:29 +0000 UTCThe old guy at the end was the legendary british wrestler Johnny Saint. He was the on-screen authority figure for NXT UK. Johnny’s first match was in 1958, and his last match was in 2015 if you can believe that. He mostly worked in the UK but also did a bunch of stuff in Japan and the indies, even as an old man. He’s still alive thankfully, and seems like a pretty chill dude. It’d be interesting to see you watch an old UK match, they did a very technical focused style and the matches were broken up into rounds. It’s still a very influential style on modern wrestling.
Will Humphries
2024-09-12 16:41:23 +0000 UTCI remember watching the May Young Classic and seeing the absolute 180 in Rhea’s appearance in that year’s tournament. Watching her grow into the wrestler she is now has been amazing. This match put me on to Toni Storm. To many fans, NXT 2.0 felt directionless. The stage set, colors and presentation got changed. Then there was a ton of main roster wrestlers on NXT that had no reason to be there. Most segments were awkward, none of it was really compelling. 2.0 was a really bad attempt at a reset.
Snazzyway
2024-09-12 16:39:25 +0000 UTCLove Rhea and Toni. Two of my favs before they became big.
Flynn Vicci
2024-09-12 16:02:48 +0000 UTCYes I loved this match but getting to see both Rhea and Toni before the characters they would grow into, also hearing that crowd again was wild especially with how loved Rhea is now
KillerX316
2024-09-12 15:44:05 +0000 UTC
