Indy Minute - Your weekly source for independent wrestling news

NXT TV, 11/6

  NXT TV opens with a recap of Sami Zayn’s road to redemption, his challenge to Adrian Neville and his win over Tyson Kidd as well as his win over Titus O’Neill last week.

  As the show opens, Tyler Breeze makes his way to the ring. I guess his match with Zayn is opening the show. Alex Riley, Rich Brennan and Jason Albert on commentary.

  Zayn is apparently 0-2 against Breeze. Breeze starts the match getting a lot of near falls from roll ups and quick pins and Zayn looks tentative to tie up.  Zayn hits an arm drag, Manhattan drop and body slam and Breeze rolls out of the ring. Hangs up Zayn on the rope and gets a two on a roll up. Breeze keeping Zayn grounded, locked in rear chin lock. Kind of a slow pace in this match, not what I would expect from either of these guys.

  Seems like all of these matches the emphasis has been on having an opponent get on top of Zayn and having him fight from behind. Breeze reverses a Blue Thunder Bomb. Zayn goes up top but Breeze heads him off and climbs the turnbuckle. Sami goes for a high crossbody and Breeze gets some big air and hits a dropkick as he comes down.  Breeze tells Zayn to just give up but Zayn hits a flatliner and goes for a Koji Clutch. Rolls through to block and Zayn ducks a Beauty Shot. Breeze hits a Supermodel Kick and gets a close 2.

  Breeze whips Zayn to the corner and runs in. Sami puts the boot up and Breeze catches it, throws it down and Zayn throws him into the corner with the exploder suplex followed by a Helluva Kick for the win. Zayn’s first win over Breeze ever.

  Backstage Renee talks to Neville about Zayn beating Breeze. Says he’s impressed and that Sami is his friend and has a title shot any time, any place but that he can’t win the big one so he’s not too worried.

  Dash Wilder to the ring with an actual entrance and music, which is kinda surprising. He usually tags with Scott Dawson in The Mechanics, though they haven’t done much lately. He’s up to take on Tyson Kidd.

  Starts off exchanging arm ringers. Wilder knocks Tyson down with a big shoulder block and Tyson into the corner. Jason Albert seems pretty confident in Dash Wilder. Tyson pummeling Dash in the corner and catapulted Dash into bottom turnbuckle. Tyson keeping him on the mat with a chin lock. Tyons hits an inzugari on the apron as Dash rushes in then hits a swinging fishermans suplex. Kidd locks in the Sharpshooter for the win.

  What the hell is this? Marcus Louis taped segment, seething in the backstage about how people won’t stop making fun on him. Looks like I was right, Louis is just gonna keep getting crazier.

  Renee talks to Sami Zayn. Feels great, that he feels like the Count of Monte Cristo, whatever that means. That he feels he’s avenging himself, that he’s righting wrongs. Apparently his title match against Neville will be next week.

  Tag match next - Bayley and Charlotte versus Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch. Sasha Banks out first and Becky who seems to have some heavier music now. Maybe? I can’t tell. Bayley out next with another iteration of her streamer gear, now it’s just attached to her wrist gauntlets. Finally, Charlotte makes her way out with her stripper remix of Flair’s music.

  Bayley and Becky start off first. I guess Bayley wants Sasha more, but shouldn’t she be more immediately pissed at Becky for backstabbing her last week? But if Sasha was in first, then that would make Becky look like the more important person in the duo, when Sasha is the mastermind and the one with the title shot coming up.

  Anyway, Becky and Bayley start things off with a tie up. Bayley goes off on Becky, looking more aggressive than usual. Becky overpowers her and tags in Sasha, but Bayley takes over and body slam followed by a knee drop. Charlotte begs to be tagged in and when she is, Sasha runs to her corner and tags in Becky. Charlotte handling Becky easily.

  Charlotte throws Becky into her corner and yells at Sasha to tag in but she doesn’t want to get in the ring with Charlotte. Sasha runs away, Becky heads Charlotte off and pulls her down by the hair then Sasha tags in once Charlotte is down, but quickly tags back out to Becky, who has been taking most of the offense in this match.

  Becky and Sasha taking control of Bayley now, tagging in and out and keeping Bayley on the ground with punches and stomps. Bayley reverses a suplex and runs Becky out when she tries to break up a pin but Sasha takes control again. Becky distracts Charlotte and Sasha clotheslines her. Bayley rolls her up and Sasha reverses and grabs the tights to get the three count. Riley calls them “BFFs the sequel.”

   To close the show, The Ascension call out Hideo Itami. They say they tried to be patient with Hideo but that he just doesn’t understand, they he doesn’t get the message. They tell him to come out so they can finish what they started.  Hideo hits the stage and is followed by Finn Balor, the former Prince Devitt, who has some awesome theme music. Jason Albert goes nuts before anything even happens.

  They rush the ring and go toe to toe with Ascension. Balor and Itami beat them into the corner and nail two running basement dropkicks. Balor stomps Konnor from the apron to the outside, hits a Pele kick on Viktor and Itami hits the busaiku knee kick (you know, the move Daniel Bryan uses that he invented).  Itami and Balor easily take advantage of the Ascension and Itami goads Konnor into getting up as Balor hits a double stomp from the tope rope.

  I was kinda hoping for a match and it just turned out to be Itami and Balor beating up The Ascension. I would hope that Ascension go to the main roster soon after this because they are looking pretty weak getting owned by two new guys over and over again.

  Solomon Crowe returned to the ring this past weekend at an NXT live event in Daytona Beach, defeating Enzo Amore. This was his first match back after suffering a knee injury several months ago.

Lucha Underground

  On Lucha Underground, Johnny Mundo and Prince Puma team up to defeat the Crenshaw Crew, Cortez Castro and Cisco, with dual 450 splashes. Afterward, Konnan tells Puma to stay away from Mundo and that Konnan is the only friend he needs.

  We also find out that Lucha Underground owner Dario Cueto has brought in Mil Muertes to deal with Blue Demon Jr. Next, Chavo Guerrero Jr and Sexy Star defeat Son of Havoc and Ivelisse in a tag team match.

  In the main event, Mil Muertes defeats Blue Demon Jr. and continues to attack him until Chavo runs in to seemingly make the save, only to hit Demon with a chair. Chavo takes out other wrestlers who try and stop him until Sexy Star comes out to plead with Chavo and he blasts her with the chair too. Demon gets taken away by an ambulance as the episode ends.

  In other Lucha Underground news, Alberto Del Rio, known now as El Patron Alberto, will be joining the promotion sometime in 2015. In an interview with the British show “WrestleTalk TV,” Del Rio said that Mexican lucha libre promotion AAA is doing great business and is really excited to be joining their new project, Lucha Underground, “next year.”

  It should also be noted that the second episode of Lucha Underground did bigger ratings than the first episode, which is a good sign. The first episode did about 21,000 viewers and the second earned about 29,000 according to Nielsen ratings. That’s a great improvement for a new show on a network that isn’t in many homes. In Delco, I don’t get El Rey through Verizon FiOS and I know people with Comcast who also say they don’t have El Rey. It might be on some package I don’t subscribe to but as far as I can tell, not many people have El Rey.

Ring of Honor

Survival of the Fittest, Night 1 results

Columbus, OH

RD Evans and Moose defeated Jay Diesel and Jake Dirden

Tommaso Ciampa defeated Will Ferrara

Roderick Strong defeated Tadarius Thomas

Adam Cole defeated Delirious

Hanson defeated Jay Lethal (nontitle)

The Addiction defeated The Decade (Jimmy Jacobs and BJ Whitmer)

Matt Sydal defeated ACH

Adam Page defeated Cedric Alexander

The Kingdom (Matt Taven and Michael Bennett) defeated The Briscoes

Survival of the Fittest, Night 2 results

Toledo, OH

Jay Lethal retains TV title against Cedric Alexander

RD Evans and Moose defeated The Decade (Jacobs and Whitmer)

Michael Bennett defeated Will Ferrara

ACH defeated Matt Taven

Tadarius Thomas defeated Romantic Touch

The Briscoes defeated The Addiction

Adam Cole defeated Adam Page, Roderick Strong, Tommaso Ciampa, Matt Sydal and Hanson to win the Survival of Fittest tournament and has earned a shot at Jay Briscoe’s Ring of Honor World title at Final Battle on December 7 in New York City.

  This weekend, ROH will present “Glory by Honor XIII” from San Antonio, TX. Slated are:

ROH World title match

Jay Briscoe (c) vs ACH

ROH TV title match

Jay Lethal (c) vs RD Evans

ROH World tag team titles

reDRagon (c) vs The Kingdom (Matt Taven and Michael Bennet)

Four way dance

BJ Whitmer vs Moose vs Hanson vs Mark Briscoe

Adam Cole vs Christopher Daniels

Roderick Strong vs Frank Kazarian

Adam Page vs Will Ferrara

  I also wanted to take a moment to talk about how awesome RD Evans will be as the new TV champion. #TheNewStreak is still going strong, with Evans and Moose earning tag team wins on both nights of Survival of the Fittest. Evans is one of the most unique wrestlers in ROH, because he is so unlike the rest of the roster. He’s great in the ring but his strength isn’t in how hard he can kick or how stiff he can chop but in his personality and acting. He’s got a much stronger, much more developed character than almost anyone else in ROH and if anyone deserves gold, it’s Evans.

  Also, I found this amazing video about what other ROH stars think of RD Evans:

  ROH World tag team champions reDRagon won the IWGP Junior Heavyweight tag team titles from The Time Splitters (Alex Shelley and KUSHIDA) at New Japan’s Power Struggle over the weekend. Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish will defend the ROH tag titles against The Time Splitters at Final Battle on December 7 and will defend the IWGP Jr titles at Wrestle Kingdom 9 in Tokyo, Japan on January 4 against The Time Splitters, The Forever Hooligans and The Young Bucks.

  Speaking of Wrestle Kingdom, Global Force Wrestling announced on Tuesday morning that WWE Hall of Famer and legendary announcer Jim Ross will be calling Wrestle Kingdom for the North American broadcast of the show. Rumor is that talks are still ongoing in regards to who will join JR on commentary.

Also, many matches have been announced for Wrestle Kingdom 9:

-The returning Kota Ibushi takes on Shinsuke Nakamura for the IWGP Intercontinental title

-Kenny “The Cleaner” Omega, who will be competing full time for NJPW now, takes on Ryusuke Taguchi for the IWGP Jr Heavyweight title. (Omega also apparently joined Bullet Club at Power Struggle, appearing after Taguchi retained against Taichi to challenge for the title. From VoicesofWrestling, Omega debuted and cut a promo in English that he’s only there for the money and he lied about wanting to join the New Japan team, siding with Bullet Club and wants the IWGP Jr title)

-reDRagon defends the IWGP Jr Heavyweight tag team titles against The Time Splitter (Alex Shelley and KUSHIDA), The Forever Hooligans and The Young Bucks.

-Tomohiro Ishii defends the NEVER Openweight title against Togi Makabe

-Kazushi Sakuraba takes on Minoru Suzuki

-Hiroshi Tanahashi defends the IWGP Heavyweight title against G1 Climax 24 winner Kazuchika Okada

WWE officially announces signing of Fergal ‘Prince’ Devitt

WWE, in a story on WWE.com, officially announced Monday morning the signing of Fergal Devitt, known to most as Prince Devitt. One of the most sought after free agents in the world of professional wrestling, the Irish-born grappler is now under contract with the biggest wrestling company in North America. Devitt will first report to the NXT developmental program in Florida, though it’s unknown when he will make his debut.

Prince Devitt's Real RockNRolla jacket puts Jericho's light up jacket to shame

Devitt brings a wealth of experience to WWE. Trained in England, Devitt has worked in the UK and Mexico but is most well-known for his time spent in New Japan Pro Wrestling. While in NJPW, Devitt earned massive popularity as well as numerous championships and titles. Devitt is a former three-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight champion and a six-time IWGP Junior Heavyweight tag team champion. Additionally, he is a two-time winner of the annual Best of Super Juniors tournament, an event which showcases the best junior heavyweight wrestlers in the world. Only a handful of wrestlers have ever won the BOSJ multiple times and he is one of only four non-Japanese wrestlers to win the tournament – the others being Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, and Ricochet.

Devitt is also the former leader of the notorious NJPW stable Bullet Club – a villainous group comprised of non-Japanese wrestlers which includes Karl “Machine Gun” Anderson, Doc Gallows, Bad Luck Fale, Tama Tonga, The Young Bucks (Matt and Nick Jackson), and more recently AJ Styles (the current IWGP Heavyweight Champion) and Yujiro Takahashi, the group’s first Japanese member.

Devitt is well versed in many styles of wrestling, being able to work the fast-paced junior heavyweight style as well as demonstrating that he can be a heel during his time in the Bullet Club. He’s also well-known for colorful bodypaint, often picturing comic book characters and other famous characters.

Devitt's colorful body paint has become a highlight of his matches.
From left are Spawn, the Joker, Carnage, The Punisher and Venom.

With the addition of Devitt, the NXT brand is adding another huge name to its already impressive roster. Joining Devitt will also being Japanese wrestler superstar KENTA, whose signing was made known during a recent WWE tour of Japan. It’s also rumored that independent wrestling stars Kevin Steen and Willie Mack will soon join NXT as well. With all these huge names on the horizon, the future of WWE and NXT is looking brighter than ever.

Rumors that WWE have signed Japanese stars Prince Devitt and KENTA

Word has been making the rounds online that the WWE has signed two huge Japanese wrestling stars – New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Prince Devitt and Pro Wrestling NOAH’s KENTA. Numerous outlets have reported that Devitt has signed a contract with WWE though there has been less substantiation to the news that KENTA will be joining WWE. While no outlets have reported for certain that KENTA will join WWE, Pro Wrestling NOAH wrestler Takashi Sugiura confirmed to Tokyo Sports that KENTA will debut in NXT this summer.

Prince Devitt is an Irish wrestler with renown in both Europe and Japan. Devitt is a former IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion and former leader of the Bullet Club – a villainous group of gaijin wrestlers that also features “Machine Gun” Karl Anderson, Luke Gallows, The Young Bucks and most recently, AJ Styles. Devitt held the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight title for well over a year, defeating Low Ki in Nov. 2012 before recently losing the belt to Kota Ibushi at Wrestle Kingdom 8 in January. Rumors of WWE’s interest in Devitt have been circulating online for some time now and those rumors were recently given credence when he posted this image on his official Instagram account:

Devitt, keeping the IWC guessing

What further seemed to indicate that Devitt would be joining the WWE before too long was his loss to Ryusuke Taguchi at the “Invasion Attack 2014” iPPV where NJPW announced that if Devitt lost, he must leave the promotion.

The Devitt signing is interesting because he brings a lot of talent and athleticism to the table. Similar to Daniel Bryan in stature, Devitt is well versed in numerous styles and should have no problem finding a spot in WWE. It’s said that interest in Devitt rose greatly after William Regal gave a tape of Devitt wrestling current NXT Champion Adrian Neville (formerly Pac) to Triple H, which was what led to the WWE signing Neville initially.

Devitt is a young guy with a lot left in the tank and he could easily shake things up in the WWE just as much as the other rumored new WWE signee, KENTA.

KENTA, who formerly worked under his given name Kenta Kobayashi, is well-known to Japanese wrestling fans for his hard-hitting, relentless style. Fans of American independent wrestling should also be familiar with his work with Ring of Honor where he’s battled Bryan Danielson (Daniel Bryan), Nigel McGuinness, Tyler Black (Seth Rollins), and Austin Aries.

And while WWE fans may not be immediately familiar with KENTA, they know his work even if they don’t realize it. KENTA is known for using the Busaiku Knee Kick, the same running knee that Daniel Bryan uses as a finisher and also created the Go2Sleep that CM Punk used as a finisher (you know, back when he wrestled). I’ve also read that it is the great respect that Bryan and KENTA have for one another that led to Bryan using the running knee and KENTA using the LeBell Lock.

Though the rumors of KENTA joining WWE are still largely rumors right now, he does have a connection to the company (beyond his former work with Daniel Bryan). In January of 2014, he attended a training session at the WWE Performance Center with the blessing of Pro Wrestling NOAH. When it occurred, he claimed that he was not after a WWE contract but was fulfilling a dream of taking part in a WWE tryout. Sources are stating that KENTA will work his last Pro Wrestling NOAH show on May 17 at Korakuen Hall as he announced at an April 30 press conference that he would be leaving the company.

With such huge stars seemingly bound for the WWE, we could be seeing major changes in the landscape of the company. If true, both stars will report to NXT this summer and my guess is that it wouldn’t be too long before we see them on the main roster. I could easily see KENTA being paired with Daniel Bryan to immediately get him over – thanks to both Bryan’s popularity and their familiarity with one another from ROH. As for Devitt, we’re seeing lots of European stars coming to prominence in the WWE right now (US Champ Sheamus, Divas Champ Paige, IC Champ Bad News Barrett and Cesaro in the hunt for gold) so I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Devitt marshals that European starpower to take over WWE.

Sources:

WrestlingNews Depot

WrestlingInc.