{"id":46635,"date":"2019-08-12T16:12:54","date_gmt":"2019-08-12T20:12:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=46635"},"modified":"2020-08-11T16:13:05","modified_gmt":"2020-08-11T20:13:05","slug":"johnny-dreamer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=46635","title":{"rendered":"Johnny Dreamer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

After watching Summer Slam<\/em>, I had this thought in my head that I had spent an inordinate amount of time throughout the weekend watching a whole lot of mediocre wrestling.\u00a0 However, despite the fact that I was looking forward to, and accordingly planned my evenings to watch both NXT<\/em> TakeOver: Toronto<\/em> and Summer Slam, in all honesty, I didn\u2019t really think that there was any particular matches that I thought were going to be great.<\/span><\/p>\n

Naturally, I prioritized TakeOver over Summer Slam, in spite of their perceived importance, and at least in my opinion, I wasn\u2019t wrong in the fact that TakeOver was the better show.\u00a0 The Summer Slam card was pretty weak, and the only match that really truly got me excited at any point was the Charlotte Flair vs. Trish Stratus match.\u00a0 Becky and Natalya wasn\u2019t a bad match, Ziggler getting squashed by Goldberg is an embarrassment to the company, Styles and Ricochet was okay, but nowhere near as good as their combined potential should have made it.\u00a0 Bayley vs. Ember Moon exposed both wrestlers as good workers, but need someone to carry them to outstanding matches, and Kevin Owens vs. Shane McMahon just had no real emotion behind it.\u00a0 Kofi and Orton was lame now as it was the 10 other times it\u2019s happened in the last 12 years, Finn Balor getting basically squashed by a yet-again-and-again repackaged Bray Wyatt is going to lead nowhere, and Seth Rollins basically spoiled the entire match by guaranteeing a win the week prior.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was a mediocre show, and it really got me wondering why I put so much effort into keeping track of it sometimes.\u00a0 Yet, I still feel this allegiance to the company that helped raise me, especially when compared to the rising AEW and other alternatives.<\/span><\/p>\n

But back to TakeOver, it too was a slightly sub-par show in my opinion; it still makes it a better show than Summer Slam, since NXT\u2019s bar is set so high, but in the grand scheme of things, I still think it was less than as good as I hoped it would be.\u00a0 The best match of the night was undeniably the Street Profits vs. the Undisputed Era, which shouldn\u2019t be surprising, because when you get four talented guys in a single fall tag team match, good things are capable of happening.\u00a0 Velveteen Dream vs. Roderick Strong and Pete Dunne probably would\u2019ve been better if it were a one-on-one match, but as often times is the case with the WWE, they love multi-competitor matches, and in my opinion, it tends to water things down.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shayna Baszler vs. Mia Yim was a pretty solid match, but I feel like NXT is going to get themselves in trouble if they continue to bury their entire women\u2019s division to Baszler; they simply don\u2019t have the depth to make her as unbeatable as they\u2019ve done over the last year.\u00a0 With Ember Moon, Kairi Sane, Bianca Belair, Io Shirai and now Mia Yim now in the dust, they don\u2019t really have anyone else to pose a threat unless they cop out and do some sort of convoluted multi-women bought where Baszler will lose without getting pinned or some shit, and that\u2019s more of a Vince McMahon cop out than a Triple H one.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Adam Cole vs. Johnny Gargano III was pretty decent, but by now I think NXT went to the well once too many by having the third edition of the matchup.\u00a0 Sure, there was a good buildup and good emotion in the match itself, but after three TakeOvers in a row, there was simply nothing new to see.\u00a0 Even if they introduced a cage and weapons, those don\u2019t always necessarily make matches better, and honestly I guess I\u2019m too old school to think they\u2019re as much enhancements to a match as much as they are dangerous gimmicks that put the competitor\u2019s physical well beings in jeopardy.<\/span><\/p>\n

But to get to the whole point of this whole post, Johnny Gargano losing was about as safe as a bet as betting on Shaq missing free throws.\u00a0 Now don\u2019t get me wrong, I\u2019ve grown to like Johnny Gargano a tremendous amount, especially after his feud with Andrade Cien Almas a year ago, but the fact of the matter is that Johnny Gargano is basically NXT\u2019s version of Tommy Dreamer: he just never fucking wins<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sure, he\u2019s won matches that have gotten him the NXT North American Championship and NXT Championship respectively at different times, but he would then go on to lose both titles in his very first televised defenses of each.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have the capacity to check, but I\u2019m pretty sure DIY also lost the tag belts in their very first defense, against the Authors of Pain a few years ago too, adding to the narrative that Johnny Gargano always loses.<\/span><\/p>\n

The point is, Johnny Gargano, as talented of a worker he is, has basically been made into NXT\u2019s punching bag \/ jobber to the stars, and it\u2019s probably not going to get better if he is actually getting his demotion-promotion to the main roster.\u00a0 He\u2019s basically the Tommy Dreamer of NXT, and as well-respected he was, it doesn\u2019t change the fact that he was most notable as the guy who always lost the big matches.<\/span><\/p>\n

By design, I didn\u2019t mention the Io Shirai vs. Candice LeRae match earlier, because I had to say my piece about LeRae\u2019s real-life husband Gargano first.\u00a0 Their match was definitely one of the better matches of the night, because much like Gargano, LeRae is a tremendous worker on the women\u2019s side, but the stigma is no safer for her than it is her husband, because she always loses too, and everyone knows she\u2019s going to lose.<\/span><\/p>\n

Frankly, it makes me curious about both Johnny and Candice Dreamer; a lot of stars from the indies have managed to shake their indy stigmas and pay their dues, but for whatever reason, NXT continues to job them out like they\u2019re the Bushwackers.\u00a0 And I wouldn\u2019t be the least bit surprised if, especially for the case of Johnny, the jobbing isn\u2019t over.\u00a0 Call it a wild hypothesis, but I feel like Johnny Gargano is going to either go down to Evolve, or Austin Theory is going to come up to NXT, but I think there\u2019s still one more job for ol\u2019 Johnny Dreamer before he gets demoted to the main roster.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After watching Summer Slam, I had this thought in my head that I had spent an inordinate amount of time throughout the weekend watching a whole lot of mediocre wrestling.\u00a0 However, despite the fact that I was looking forward to, and accordingly planned my evenings to watch both NXT TakeOver: Toronto and Summer Slam, in … Continue reading Johnny Dreamer<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[45,83,54,55],"class_list":["post-46635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-fail","tag-observations","tag-wrestling","tag-wwe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46637,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46635\/revisions\/46637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}