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00:00 And it's right my friends, do not adjust your television sets, although that's weird, why
00:03 are you going to see some random bald guy and go 'oh my gosh there's something wrong
00:06 with the TV'.
00:07 You're not even watching this on TV, but the point is NXT 2.0 just had a little bit of
00:12 a spring break event and we thought, why not return to it with a lovely episode of Ups
00:18 and Downs.
00:19 Which is exactly what we are going to do, so hello my name is Simon from WhatCulture,
00:22 I am the master of the king, the ruler of the ups and downs universe, haha you can see
00:27 why Vince McMahon does it, and it's time to take the broken finger of power, the hand
00:30 of power and give the good bits of up and the bad bits of down for NXT 2.0 Spring Breaking.
00:52 Pretty deadly kicked off Spring Breaking by sitting by a pool and telling us what the
00:56 card was going to be, which is why NXT 2.0 is a really weird show.
01:00 However as we are talking about pretty deadly, I think it is so cool they have made it in
01:04 the big time, because I trained with them a few times back in the day, you love to see
01:09 it.
01:10 Our first match was then Solo Sokoa taking on Carmelo Hayes, taking on Cameron Grimes
01:14 for the North American Championship.
01:16 And this is why NXT, whether it be 1.0, 2.0 or 79.69 will always be a good show to watch,
01:23 because when you get talent like this and you say 'hey go out there and have a good
01:26 match' they will smash it.
01:28 Hayes got whooped in the early going so that Sokoa and Grimes could go at it instead, and
01:32 then poor Carmelo.
01:34 Every time he tried to get back on the ring like he'd hop on the apron, he would be
01:38 knocked back down to the floor, but this was a wonderful metaphor and analogy for life.
01:43 Because eventually he was able to get back in there because he refused to stay down,
01:47 and then he hit this springboard leg drop thing, which is one of the greatest things
01:51 I've ever seen in my life, which is why I'm staring off into the distance looking all
01:55 whimsical.
01:56 It was then time for the usual WWE triple threat spot, which is you work with me and
01:59 then I'll work with you and then you work with him and then we'll all work together,
02:03 but look if it ain't broke don't fix it, and eventually we got to the near falls.
02:07 And the reason I thought these worked so well is because in my head I could justify any
02:11 one of these three winning, so I was like well maybe it's going to be you, you, you.
02:15 All of this was happening so fast too I struggled to make a decision, much like when I go to
02:19 Pizza Hut and they did this Tower of Doom spot complete with a harakirana.
02:24 Now the Tower of Doom spot has been done so much we just sit there and shrug our shoulders
02:28 like we're emoji, but next time I really want you to watch this, it is absolutely nuts.
02:34 This is when the fans started to do the holy ship chant, which was absolutely deserved,
02:38 and then Sokoa hit a yuranage onto Hayes that was so high I thought they were going to end
02:44 up in outer space, then they were doing super kicks out of midair, everybody doing this
02:48 so clap.
02:49 We then got even more near falls, and while some of them were obvious it still got you
02:52 locked in, and when Solo was able to hit the Samoan Drop, Cameron Grimes jumped off the
02:59 top rope, he hit his double foot stomp, he kind of stole the pin but not really, he just
03:03 used his head, he is still your champion.
03:06 And I'm giving this an up, even if for some reason you're watching ups and downs but you
03:09 don't intend to watch NXT, make sure you check out this match.
03:13 Mandy Rose was then going to get a tan, so my first question was, why would anyone film
03:19 this, you were just going about your day to day errands.
03:21 However, when she did go in the sunbed, this is when Wendy Chu turned up, and even though
03:27 the timer was on 10 minutes, she extended it.
03:30 And I was like, right, well she needs to be arrested, because that's attempted murder,
03:33 people have died in that kind of situation, but apparently Wendy Chu doesn't care.
03:37 To the very least she should have been brought into questioning, and of course Mandy was
03:40 all red by the end of this.
03:46 We also saw Nathan Frazier getting ready for his big NXT debut later, when Roderick Strong
03:51 turned up.
03:52 It sounds like he's not going to get his NXT release, we'll have to see how that one plays
03:57 out.
03:58 And of course he was talking to the Creed Brothers here, and basically was like, I'm
04:01 the leader now, where's Malcolm Bivens, but they're never going to Dallas.
04:08 It does feel like Julius and Brutus are done with his nonsense though, so I guess we're
04:11 going to spin that way, when Duke Hudson and Indi Hartwell were being all kind of lovey
04:17 dovey with each other.
04:18 There was of course no mention of their friends either, because we must stay quiet and pretend
04:22 it never happened.
04:23 And then Nathan Frazier did debut at NXT 2.0, and let's keep it nice and simple.
04:28 He was taken on Grayson Waller, and amazingly too he won.
04:31 Now this was thanks to Andre Chase, who came out with an air horn that made us sound so
04:37 loud, Grayson Waller just fell off the top rope.
04:40 I was like, I'm now watching a kids TV show.
04:42 But when it comes to WWE and people making their first big debut thing in the jigs, as
04:47 long as they get the victory I don't care how they do it.
04:49 The comedy team were really good as well, because they kept telling you, oh hey, he
04:53 was trained by Seth Rollins and name association is really important, and then he was just
04:58 flying around the ring like a bird.
05:00 Now I get that sounds a bit weird, but he's just so good at it.
05:03 Sadly he wasn't able to be the highlight of this match though, because at one point Grayson
05:06 Waller got a beach ball and he popped it like, I am the worst villain on the planet.
05:12 As I just said, kids TV show.
05:14 I also liked it when Waller pretended he was Seth Rollins, and this annoyed Nathan Frazier
05:18 so much, he was like don't you disrespect my captain.
05:21 He then just opened up on him, and he also did this dive.
05:25 And I know we see 800 million dives every single week, but there was something about
05:29 this one.
05:30 He should keep it up.
05:31 He also took this horrible bump off the top rope, which is when Andre did come out, and
05:35 Baze just went, ah, and Grayson Waller took this bratfall.
05:39 I couldn't help but laugh, because I am an absolute goober, and Nathan was able to hit
05:44 his Phoenix Splash, much like Seth Rollins.
05:46 He got the one, two, three, and I'm excited about this, and I think old Nate is going
05:51 to break the mold.
05:52 We then learn that Fallon Henry is coming to NXT, and that she loves her horse.
05:58 Not making this up, it's exactly what happened.
06:00 We then went all skit crazy, as we always do on NXT 2.0 as well, because Santos Escobar
06:04 and Tony DeAngelo were sitting down together.
06:06 Honestly, the makers of The Godfather are going to ring up WWE and say, yeah, look,
06:11 we want a little bit of money, because we know what you're doing.
06:13 Because it's basically one crew versus the other, Oligar and Odell Phantasma taking on
06:17 the wise guys, and while they made peace here, you could just tell something was coming.
06:23 And if we are going to break this right down, I don't know really how I feel about this,
06:27 they just want you to go, well, these dudes over here are like the Mexican cartel, and
06:33 these guys over here are the Italian mafia.
06:35 And that's what we're doing, and I suppose we just gotta let it play out.
06:40 I must say, however, because I like goofy wrestling, I did get into this, especially
06:43 because the verbiage was so silly.
06:45 But don't worry, there's a big twist coming, and we'll get to it in a little bit.
06:48 We then threw a bunch of tag team stuff together, because the Viking Raiders were being interviewed
06:52 about their big match with the Creed Brothers later, when Pretty Deadly turned up and basically
06:56 said, ha ha, we think you suck.
06:58 The Vikings then went, yeah, you better leave.
07:01 So Pretty Deadly did leave, at least they're good at taking instructions.
07:05 This mad formatting of NXT then continued, because Joe Gacy was just here in a darkened
07:09 room and he said, if I don't win the NXT title later, you better all be scared, because bad
07:15 things are coming and you're not going to be able to believe it.
07:17 I'm like, what are you going to do?
07:19 Let's say that he went and, I don't know, murdered Brom Breaker, which of course would
07:22 be terrible.
07:23 I'd be like, well, I'm not massively scared about it, I'm thousands of miles away.
07:27 Anyway, moving on from that, we were back in the ring finally, and this is where reviewing
07:31 NXT 2.0 gets a little bit difficult.
07:33 There was Cora Jade and Nikita Lyons taking on Lash, Legend and Natalya, and was this
07:37 the greatest match I've ever seen in my life?
07:40 No it's not.
07:41 But do not forget, when you do tune in to WWE's third brand, or whatever we're calling
07:45 it, it has gone back to being a developmental promotion, meaning there are people in the
07:51 ring that need more experience, and the way they're getting experience is by doing it
07:55 on TV.
07:56 Now I'm sure everybody involved would rather do this away from the cameras, but nobody
08:00 is going to turn away from the opportunity, and once again, WWE has made this abundantly
08:05 clear so criticising it and then watching it seems ridiculous.
08:07 So while this was slightly hit and miss, I would feel like a right idiot if I started
08:11 criticising it.
08:12 It's like, imagine Gordon Ramsay walks in here right now and is like, "oh, hello Simon,
08:16 you don't know how to bake a cake", because something's gone wrong with Gordon Ramsay.
08:19 I'd be like, "what, no, I don't know how to bake a cake, and why am I on your television
08:23 programme, we didn't come up with this at all, and that didn't make any sense, but you
08:27 take my point."
08:28 It's why seeing Lion's Jade and Legend in there with Natalya can only be a good thing,
08:32 because she's really good and she's got a ton of experience and she can place that upon
08:36 them.
08:37 And also, when you do sit down and observe the show in this way, I actually think it
08:41 has an interesting twist to it, because you see these people getting better, you see them
08:44 improving, you see them failing, you see them succeeding, and I actually think that builds
08:48 a nice relationship with these professional wrestlers, and that's why I like it.
08:52 It was Nikita that got the hot tag, which probably makes the most sense right now, because
08:55 she is super over with the crowd, but her inexperience cost her here because she didn't
09:00 see Natalya tag in Legend.
09:02 Although, this then went really badly, because Natty went to break up a pin, and she dropped
09:08 Kitka Partner right in the face.
09:10 This allowed Lion's to do her split-legged thingamajig, when Cora Jade came off the top
09:14 with a senton, she pinned Legend for the one, two, three, and I thought, all of this will
09:18 be fine, Natalya will go on to work with whoever the hell she wants to work with, including
09:22 Cora Jade, and I'm going to give it a nap.
09:24 It was right back to be a Sunday after this, and you do have to give it a damn, because
09:28 NXT has way too many of these, to the point you can't keep up with them or let any of
09:32 them process, when Tatum Paxley told us, "I'm entering that women's tournament and I'm going
09:37 to win."
09:38 She's a powerlifter, so she's going to lift her way to victory or something.
09:42 When we also saw Gigi Dolan and Jacy Jayne heading to the beach, because of course they
09:46 were.
09:47 They were doing bikini stuff, so you can make your mind up about that.
09:51 This is when Wendy Chu was back, and once again she was committing crimes.
09:55 She was joined by Roxanne Perez here, and do you know what they did?
09:59 They stole toxic attraction stuff, including grand theft autoing their car and driving
10:06 it down the street.
10:07 Now, admittedly, that is a waste of time crime, but it still counts.
10:09 The point was, when Dolan and Jayne were done, and they went to get back in their vehicle,
10:13 they couldn't without walking on the hot pavement.
10:16 She was like, "Oh my gosh, the warmth.
10:19 That was the silliest thing I've ever seen in my life.
10:22 I was dying.
10:23 I was laughing again, but I was entertained.
10:25 If you are going to do ridiculous stuff, I enjoy it when people commit to the point."
10:29 You weren't going to believe it.
10:30 Hello, comments.
10:31 I'm giving it up.
10:32 The Creed's then beat the Viking Raiders.
10:35 And they call me Shirley and give me a wig.
10:38 I mean, it's good on one hand, because Julius and Brutus do have something, so let's big
10:41 them up as much as possible, but I just have this worry deep down in my tum-tum that WWE
10:46 doesn't understand what they have with Erik and Ivar.
10:48 I mean, if they can't even get a win on NXT, what the flub are they going to do on Raw
10:52 and Smackdown?
10:53 I mean, it was really good, because it was just big men slapping man meat.
10:55 We know how that goes.
10:56 They were punching each other and throwing them around the ring.
10:59 And at one point, Ivar was on the ring apron and he did a dive onto the outside.
11:04 I mean, he splashed a guy.
11:06 Julius was also manhandling Erik with a suplex back in the ring.
11:10 I was like, that's really impressive.
11:12 And as ever, we went to the near falls.
11:15 Even though I thought the Vikings were going to win, this is WWE, so they planted that
11:19 seed of doubt very well.
11:20 There was also this nut superplex spot, because again, they're such gargantuan men, I do not
11:24 expect it.
11:25 And the Viking Raiders hit that finish thing they do off the top rope for a really close
11:30 near fall.
11:31 I tell you, the Creed brothers broke it up at 2.999.
11:34 This is when Roderick Strong ran out there in a hoodie, though, and he destroyed Erik's
11:37 knee.
11:38 And Julius saw that, so he smashed in with a big lariat and he got the 1-2-3.
11:43 And then yes, afterwards, they were like, Roderick, you shouldn't have done that.
11:46 So surely we are going to split up these guys.
11:50 Is that because Roderick Strong is leaving?
11:52 I really don't know.
11:53 The last reports say he ain't going nowhere.
11:55 Still, though, I definitely enjoyed this for what it was.
11:57 It was a really good tag team match.
12:01 We then had more kidnapping.
12:04 How is this allowed to still be in place?
12:07 Rick Styler would have been great.
12:08 But it was AJ Gallante who did indeed get kidnapped by Logano del Fantasma.
12:12 And my big question is, where are they going to keep him?
12:15 Do they just have one massive cupboard they're going to throw in there?
12:18 I have no idea.
12:19 We also had another one as we learned that Al Bafia is coming to NXT next week, even
12:23 though it's just Kay Lee Ray.
12:25 Although now she has a baseball bat, there's also a torch.
12:28 I like, good for her.
12:30 Following this too, we had masturbation jokes.
12:32 Now, as we said on AEW Ups and Downs a while ago, if you talk about jizzing on a title,
12:37 I'm automatically going to give you a down.
12:39 So it comes the same with the five knuckle shuffle.
12:43 If you bring it up and start joking about that, you getting a down.
12:46 But it was Brooks Jensen and Josh Briggs, and of course the latter has hurt his wrist.
12:49 And for some reason, the doctor said, well, can I ask why you use your right hand so much
12:53 or something?
12:54 I mean, maybe it's about carrying a bag.
12:56 Maybe it's writing.
12:58 Maybe he enjoys shaking people's hands.
13:00 But no, we had to pretend it was about hugging yourself off.
13:04 We don't need to do it down.
13:05 The main event was next, and it was one of these where he wanted to make it feel like
13:08 a big deal.
13:09 So after Joe Gacy had done his big entrance and turned it all black and white, we saw
13:12 Bron Breakker in the back and he flipped the switch and that returned color to proceedings.
13:16 Thought it was a nice touch.
13:18 We were also told that the NXT Champion was wearing a singlet from his dad's collection,
13:23 which also is a little bit strange.
13:24 So what did he go around?
13:25 They picked it out together.
13:26 And look, they had a decent match.
13:29 The big question going into this is, oh man, how's it going to be?
13:31 Because Bron isn't working with a Dolph Ziggler and Bron isn't working with a Tommaso Ciampa.
13:36 And sure, the overall level came down, but for the last match on an NXT 2.0 program,
13:40 I thought it was fine.
13:41 It also shows that right now, Bron is excellent when you put him with the right guy and will
13:45 come into his own as the weeks and months continue, but also that Gacy has a bunch of
13:48 potential.
13:49 So it's that whole NXT 2.0 thing again.
13:52 It's just doing what it needs to do.
13:53 There were a few squiggles too, especially with this one belly to belly that did not
13:57 go right.
13:58 I was like, man, I hope he's okay.
14:00 And the real issue, if we want to talk about problems, is that not one single person in
14:04 the NXT arena, or maybe watching at home, believed that Bron Breaker was going to lose
14:08 his NXT Championship.
14:09 And they were correct because that would have been potty.
14:11 The finish was kind of good though, because Joe went to do a handspring off the ropes.
14:15 Bron Breaker was able to get out of the way there.
14:16 He absolutely murked him with this spear out of nowhere.
14:21 He got the three count.
14:22 And then behind him, as the show went off air, these two druids were just looking at
14:27 him.
14:28 I don't know why NXT is so obsessed with this stuff, but I can't pretend I don't
14:32 enjoy it because I do.
14:33 And I'm giving it up.
14:34 Which brought us to the end of the show.
14:36 And yeah, I thought it was okay.
14:37 And I'll level with you, keep this between you and I.
14:40 I always think NXT 2.0 is okay.
14:43 I think it's designed just to be an okay show.
14:46 Sometimes okay is fine.
14:47 Now please do leave a comment below and let us know what you thought of last night's
14:50 episode of NXT.
14:51 Like the video, share the video and subscribe.
14:52 Head over to www.wrestlingworld.com where you can stay up to date with all the latest
14:55 wrestling news.
14:56 Follow us on social media and believe you me.
14:58 There's a ton of ups and downs videos.
15:00 Why don't you watch one?
15:01 My name is Simon What Culture.
15:03 Thank you for joining me as always.
15:04 I don't know why I saluted you, but I look forward to seeing you again very soon.
15:09 [MUSIC PLAYING]