As we all know, seven is the most powerful podcasting number, so it is with great arcane energy that we present the seventh episode of The NXT Wrestling Fan, covering the episode of NXT that originally aired on July 3rd, 2013. If you don’t have WWE Network, you can watch the show here.

In this episode:

Unfortunately, this is the episode where Miles has to try and explain to Bob why Antonio Cesaro is suddenly talking about making America great again by getting rid of all the immigrants. The short answer is that over on the main roster, a dark place we try not to talk about, Cesaro has joined up with a pair of guys named Jack Swagger and Zeb Coutler, also known as The Real Americans.

This tasted a whole lot better going down back in 2013, but even then it was…not great. Even though the Real Americans were over-the-top heels, they were also extremely good wrestlers, and an uncomfortable number of fans cheered them at the time and would chant “We, the people” during their matches. In fact, as viewers of the new wrestling show AEW Dynamite are aware, Jack Swagger recently returned to wrestling television as Jake Hager and was greeted with enthusiastic “we the people” chants, until wrestling legend Chris Jericho directly addressed and killed the chant.

As Jericho himself put it:

Couldn’t have said it better myself, champ. Anyway, while wrestling fans today don’t have to deal with the Real Americans anymore, we’re watching 2013 NXT, so we do. We also have to watch Bo Dallas, who is defending his NXT title against Cesaro RIGHT HERE TONIGHT. No, Bob, there is no rhyme or reason behind anyone getting championship opportunities.

Except when there is, like when there’s a tournament or something. The semi-finals in the women’s championship tournament have arrived, and we kick off the show with Alicia Fox vs. Paige. Both these women have pretty amazing outfits for this match:

Bob notes the mermaid look and has many thoughts about the ruffly skirt part of Fox’s costume. She also notes that this match is a little more technical than some others she’s seen, which she and Miles attribute to the wrestling styles of the competitors.

At one point Alicia rolls to the outside to catch her breath, a standard heel frustration tactic that makes babyfaces like Paige do things like this:

Never fear, though; Paige ends up getting the victory with her finisher, the Paige Turner. Bob spends a not insignificant portion of this episode being delighted by the pun names people give their finishing moves, but she is somewhat disappointed that Paige doesn’t have a move named after a 1994 animated film that we both love, but that probably nobody else remembers.

Email us at nxtwrestlingfan@gmail.com to let us know what kind of move the Paigemaster should be. And go watch that movie, it’s adorable.

As long as you’re following instructions, look at this face. Remember this face.

Cool, now forget about it, doesn’t matter. This guy’s name is Andy Baker and as far as we can tell, this is his first and last wrestling match. But to whom, you ask, is Andy Baker jobbing?

There’s not much to this match between Baker and Conor O’Brien, so Bob spends some time elaborating further on how obvious their relationship is.

“Hey baby, you win this match and I’ll do that thing you like. You know. The thing.”

Meanwhile, backstage, Adrian Neville gives a brave hobbit speech about how William Regal should join his and Corey Graves’ fight against the Wyatt Family, since Kassius Ohno is, uh, injured. Yeah, injured. Neville accomplishes this by wielding the power of SUDDEN EARNESTNESS.

Come on now, you can’t say no to that face. Later we cut directly to the announce team (wait, Tony Dawson? I’m not sure Miles and Bob even noticed that somebody besides Tom Phillips was on commentary for this episode. Nope. No, they did not) where Regal announces that he will, indeed, join the fight against the Wyatts.

And now Bob is ridiculously happy, because…

William Regal is wrestling, y’all. Get excited. Yes, THAT excited.

Sylvester LeFort comes out to introduce his client, Scott Dawson. Not the tag team, Dawson and Dylan, mind you. Just Dawson. Who’s Garrett Dylan? Never heard of him. Scott Dawson has never had a tag team partner, certainly nobody named “Dylan.” Pay no attention to the graphic on the Titantron.

Suddenly Singles Wrestler Scott Dawson is here to wrestling one of Bob’s favorite NXT characters:

Funky Nerd Xavier Woods is here, and he’s just as amazing as ever. Of course, he does occasionally get fingers jammed up his nose…

And he gets dropped on his head by Dawson in this sequence that made Bob take note:

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Just throws him down onto his entire head. Brutal. But it’s okay, because Woods has an entire arsenal of pun-named moves to throw back, including the Honor Roll:

And Lost in the Woods:

Both those images were snapped just before the point of impact, by the way. Lost in the Woods is more than enough to put Dawson away. I don’t know, guys, I just get this feeling that Dawson is more comfortable as a tag team wrestler. He should really try committing to that, he might do a little better.

Bray Wyatt is here once again to continue spreading his peculiar gospel, which includes (a) not judging other people, and (b) the end of the world, maybe? It’s hard to really say. Dig that sheep mask, though.

Bob and Miles also have a brief conversation about Wyatt’s previous character, Husky Harris, who looked like this:

Oof. Yeah, that was a time best forgotten.

Oh, and speaking of things that are best forgotten, Miles says in this episode that Husky Harris debuted in the very first season of Game Show NXT. He didn’t actually show up until Season 2. We regret the error, but honestly, you can’t expect people to remember stuff from those terrible shows.

You like that picture? That’s the only offensive move from the Mason Ryan vs. Enzo Amore match. It’s that, then the pin. Ryan then has an impromptu match with Colin Cassady (whose 7-foot height, it turns out, cannot be taught). There are maybe four or five moves in that one, but it ends like this:

Yeah, that’s the New York skyline, upside down. Mason Ryan is truly apocalyptic.

And now it’s time for the main event, which I’m sure won’t be tainted at all by Cesaro’s newfound political allegiance…

God dammit.

MAGA Cesaro is here to challenge for the NXT Championship. Bo Dallas is his opponent, but they’re not alone out there for long…

Leo Kruger is here, stalking his prey out at ringside! I mean, okay, maybe he’s just playing with his hair.

He has front row seats for all the hard-hitting action in this match, which is mainly Cesaro beating up Dallas and Dallas kicking out of pinfall attempts. Oh, and also this:

Mr. Kruger, can we get your reaction to a large rope going up a man’s entire ass?

Yeah, Bob feels the same way.

Cesaro goes so far as to swing Dallas around by his neck, but Bo Dallas simply will not give up. It’s part of his babyface character (the announcers claim he idolizes Bret Hart, John Cena, and Tim Tebow — William Regal has thoughts about that last one) and it seems like NXT really is still trying to make that happen. This is the face you make when you’re wrestling a guy whose narrative is that he never, ever gives up:

Sure enough, Dallas retains the championship, though only because he gets briefly distracted by Kruger at ringside. Afterward, Kruger decides to attack Dallas:

But Cesaro throws him off and goes after Dallas himself, an attack that includes a jumping double-stomp that Bob has to bring up:

But then, the heels have a realization. Or, as Bob likes to think of it, a meet-cute.

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This romantic beatdown is sadly cock-blocked by Sami Zayn, who immediately goes after Cesaro…

Zayn and Dallas hold the ring against Cesaro and Kruger, and the show ends with a handshake…and a promise from Zayn that he also has his eyes on the prize.

But that’s not all we talk about on this episode! For one thing, a random 2013 commercial kicks off a conversation about this guy:

Keep it in your pants, wrestling fans.

And for another thing, the wrestling term of the week is…SUPLEX! Which means we really need some visual aids.

Miles has many happy feelings about Alicia Fox and her northern lights suplex, seen in action here:

Here’s a GIF version, also courtesy of Alicia Fox.

She makes that look so good. Anyway, just because the northern lights suplex is the best kind of suplex, that doesn’t mean it’s all you can do when you want to pop your hips and slam your opponent on their back. You could, for example, throw a German suplex:

Or a belly-to-belly suplex (the finishing move of both Bo Dallas and Bayley):

If you want, you can take that one even further for what’s called an overhead belly-to-belly:

Or you could go simple with the basic vertical suplex:

Of course, some people like that make that one a little more complicated…

Okay, fine — a lot more complicated.

And sometimes suplexes just get crazy.

Note the yellow ropes there. As usual, the best wrestling always happens in NXT.

That’s not even close to being all the suplexes in existence, but hopefully you now have an idea of what a typical one looks like!

And hey, next episode…

Woooooooooooooooooo!

By the way, that is, in fact, our music! It’s called “Learnbuckle” and it was created by the uniquely talented Rafael Medina, whose work you can and should follow via his Twitter account, @EarthMeauxFaux! You can also follow Miles @mjschneiderman, MeganBob @meganbobness, and the show itself @nxtwrestlingfan.

Additional music and sound credit to:

“Eyes Gone Wrong”, “Greta Sting”, “NewsSting”, “Samba Stings,” “Machinations”
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/