By Rich Twilling

WWE NXT on WWE.com
Taped earlier tonight in Lafayette, Louisiana

[Q1] The opening video aired. Todd Grisham and Josh Mathews welcomed us to the show. Matt Striker stood in the ring and introduced the rookies, who all came out to the ring...

Twill's Two Cents: Kudos to Michael Cole for getting out of this shit. By the way Bateman does look a lot like Andy Samberg.

It's karaoke time. They will be singing wrestler entrance themes...

Twill's Two Cents: Let's get William Shatner out here for this.

Conor O'Brian drew Sheamus. Credit to him, he got into it at least. Samberg drew The Miz. He had trouble following the music, but did a decent job. Novak drew his pro, Dolph Ziggler. Novak looks like Triple H from the side. He sucked. "I'm a professional athlete; don't boo me. I'm better than all of you."

Brodus drew Cody Rhodes. That was a perfect plant. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out all that funny. He sang it about like you would expect Big Brodus to. Johnny Curtis drew Randy Orton. Curtis got into the role and immersed himself in it. Saxton drew Shawn Michaels. His rhythm way off and he had trouble actually reading the words. Terrible...

Twill's Two Cents: Okay, Brodus should have sang HBK's music. That would have been good.

Saxton won the competition. Wow. Tone deaf crowd I guess...

Todd and Josh described the rest of the show... [C]

A Jacob Novak video package aired. I mentioned he looked like Triple H from the side, but he looks a lot like Chris Nowinski too. He said he compared himself to Jack Swagger. His character is sort of a hybrid between Swagger and maybe JBL...

[Q2] 1. Ted DiBiase and Brodus Clay (with Maryse) defeated Chris Masters and Byron Saxton in 7:07. Clay overpowered Saxton early on. Masters tagged in and had a bit more success, even attempting a Master Lock. Brodus successfully turned the tables on Masters and tagged in Ted... [C]

Masters nearly got out of his opponents' corner, but DiBiase hit a damn nice looking drop kick. Saxton tagged in but didn't fare well. Brodus had the match won but tagged DiBiase back in, who struggled with Masters. Masters set up DiBiase for the Master Lock, but Saxton tagged himself in. Fool. Ted hit Dream Street for the win...

Twill's Two Cents: I really liked the way Brodus looked. Powerful, agile, and fast. The dynamic of both rookies making mistakes in tagging out and tagging in, respectively, was well done. We'll see if they play that up along the way.

Backstage, crazy ass Derrick Bateman was approached by Daniel Bryan. Bryan wanted to teach him a submission. Bateman channeled his inner Kenny Powers, which gave Bryan a look on his face wondering was next from his rookie... [C]

[Q3] Obstacle course time. Novak went first. That new referee, the idiot one, cannot talk to ten apparently because Novak did about 25 pushups. Saxton is sort of the Michael Tarver of this group. He went through the entire course but did slow very slowly.

O'Brian fell awkwardly over the highest hurdle. Bateman had trouble with the pushups. This referee doesn't know what a pushup is because he is making people start over for no reason. Bateman took over the lead. Curtis looks like Davey Richards in the face. Curtis beat the time but the balance beam referee said he fell off...

Twill's Two Cents: Geez, these referees look stupid enough during matches, but apparently they cannot count, see, or determine what a pushup is.

Curtis was ultimately disqualified. Brodus turned over the hurdles instead of counting them. He chased down the pushup referee for saying he was already disqualified. He then threw a tire. Oh, and Johnny Curtis gets another shot at the obstacle course...

Twill's Two Cents: What the f---? He either fell off the balance beam or he didn't.

Curtis went a second time and won the competition. My feed froze for a moment. I was hoping it would freeze permanently...

The Curtis video aired. He is from the mean streets of Westbrook, Maine. It's true. That place is Detroit-like. Curtis delivered an Austin Aries "Greatest Man Alive" type of promo, until he told the story of his best friend being killed in an auto accident...

Bateman vs. Alberto Del Rio was hyped... [C]

The Slammy Awards were recapped. They sucked. There's your recap...

[Q4] Backstage, Jacob Novak introduced himself to Vickie Guerrero. He talked crap about Kaitlyn and flirted with Vickie. Dolph Ziggler interrupted them and made sure Novak knew he was onto him. He then told Novak to go watch the main event by himself...

Twill's Two Cents: Vickie turns me on too. Or does she? Wait.

2 Alberto Del Rio (with Conor O'Brian) defeated Derrick Bateman (with Daniel Bryan) in 3:20. Bateman withstood an early offensive barrage by Del Rio and hit that flipping neck breaker for a nearfall. He missed a dropkick in the corner and Del Rio locked in the arm bar for the win...

Twill's Two Cents: Decent showing by Bateman although he really didn't get to do much. Del Rio winning main events on NXT doesn't do much for him and takes away from the rookies, unless they lose in more competitive fashion, so I wonder what the thinking is here. Nonetheless, I think Bateman, O'Brian, and Curtis really stepped forward tonight in showcasing their unique personalities. Now, everyone should know who these guys are. Thank you for following along with me tonight.

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