Ol’ Blue Pants – The El Generico of NXT

Every now and then I’ll see posts on wrestling message boards asking for help to get back into WWE. Sometimes the questions are about current wrestlers or if past ones are still in the ring. Some ask about current storylines and often about how to get into NXT. But I’ve also seen the same specific question – who is Blue Pants and why does she seem to be so popular?

It’s not an easy question to answer. Blue Pants (independent wrestler Leva Bates) hasn’t wrestled very often in NXT, only won once, has very plain attire and has never cut a promo. Yet despite all that, has become a favorite among NXT fans, getting huge reactions at the NXT Arena in Full Sail University and even been interviewed by WWE.com.

Blue Pants – aka Leva Bates – has been wrestling since 2006 but only made her NXT debut in Sept. 2014, taking on Carmella in a losing effort. Since then, she’s wrestled five more times for NXT and actually won a match against Carmella in Dec. 2014. But in that first appearance, a star was born. Even though she’s just an enhancement talent (a nice way of saying she’s a jobber), fans quickly latched onto Blue Pants because of her upbeat attitude and enthusiasm, despite seemingly having no character beyond being happy to be there and being named after the color of her pants.

And as I thought about what made fans so enamored with Blue Pants, it made me recall another ultra-popular wrestler with an equally simplistic character – El Generico.

El Generico got his start in Quebec, Montreal, Canada for International Wrestling Syndicate in 2002. ProFightDB.com lists his first match as a four-way at CZW’s High Stakes 2 in 2004 (with Kevin Steen, Excess 69 and won by Sexxxy Eddy) though CageMatch.net has his first match listed as 2002 with IWS against TNT, a match which he won by count out.

The story I’ve always heard about El Generico’s origin is this – the Generico gimmick wasn’t meant to be permanent, rather he was just supposed to be another jobber. He had generic tights, a generic luchadore mask and even had the word “generic” right in his name. Nothing was supposed to stand out about El Generico – except, somehow, the fans absolutely loved him. They loved him so much he won his first 8 matches in IWS and his first loss was in an IWS Heavyweight Title match against Dru Onyx.

Blue Pants was even inducted into the bWo!

 

It’s hard to say why the fans took to Generico so much initially. But as time went on, he developed into a beloved, ultra-babyface character that just wanted to wrestle and put on great matches, which the fans really connected with. And the same could be said of Blue Pants.

Like Generico, she isn’t flashy and her name is based on the attire that she just happened to be wearing for her debut. She’s just happy to be able to work for NXT and I think it’s her earnest enthusiasm which the fans picked up on and took to right away. Just look at the June 10 edition of NXT TV in her match against (Evil) Emma – Blue Pants got arguably the biggest pop of the night. It’s hard to say if Ol’ Blue Pants will have as lengthy a career as El Generico or if she’ll ever be brought in full time by WWE, but one thing is for sure, just like El Generico, Blue Pants has definitely won the heart of the crowd.

(I actually wrote this several months ago and never posted it for some reason. I don’t think it will feel too dated and with Blue Pants showing up at NXT Takeover: Brooklyn, it feels like as good a time as any. I actually saw Leva wrestle in some tiny town in middle to northern New Jersey against Veda Scott in…I wanna say late 2013. It was for a Wrestling Is show and there were maybe 50-80 people there, it’s very cool to see someone who works incredibly hard at both costumes and cosplay as well as wrestling, like Leva does, get such a big reaction at a huge event like Takeover: Brooklyn.)

Indy Minute - Weekly independent wrestling new round up

Indy Minute is back again with more independent wrestling news than you can handle. Also, make sure to vote for me in the Ring Rust Radio Current Era Fantasy Draft because if you’re an indy smark, you’ll love my card. I’ll make sure to link it when the vote is up, but for now – let’s get onto the news!

WWE.com officially announced the signing of Kevin Steen on Tuesday.
Along with Fergal Devitt and Kenta, as well as the former independent stars like Sami Zayn and Adrian Neville, the future is looking bright for NXT and the WWE in general.

On NXT TV, Enzo Amore and Colin Cassady defeated Jason Jordan and Tye Dillinger in the first round of a tournament to decide a #1 contender for the NXT tag team titles. Enzo and Big Cass will face the winner of Bull Dempsey and Mojo Rawley vs The Vaudvillains. CJ Parker picked up a win against Xavier Woods followed by Bayley defeating Eva Marie, who got booed from bell to bell and even drew a “Worse than Batista” chant. In the main event, Sami Zayn and Adam Rose defeated Tyson Kidd and Justin Gabriel to advance in the tag team tournament. Zayn and Rose will now face the winner of Sin Cara and Kalisto vs Wesley Blake and Buddy Murphy.

Also, Jason Albert (formerly Tensai) now considers himself retired from in ring competition and will focus solely on working with the developmental side of the company and NXT

Ring of Honor’s Field of Honor event at MCU Park in Brooklyn, New York is this Friday.

Lineup for Field of Honor:

ROH Champion Michael Elgin vs. AJ Styles vs Adam Cole vs Jay Briscoe

ROH TV Champion Jay Lethal vs Matt Taven in a steel cage match

ROH Tag Team Champions reDRagon (Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish) vs Bad Influence (Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian)

Cedric Alexander vs ACH

Mark Briscoe vs Takaaki Watanabe

Silas Young vs Tommaso Ciampa

Rockey Romero vs Michael Bennett with Maria Kanellis

ROH also recently announced All Star Extravaganza on September 6 in Toronto which will be the company’s first iPPV in some time.

In other Ring of Honor news, I attended the Philadelphia Summer Heat tour at the Armory over the weekend and posted results here. This show constituted three TV tapings so these results should be considered spoilers.

In the final event of New Japan Pro Wrestling’s G1 Climax 24, Adam Cole and Michael Bennett defeated Jushin Thunder Liger and Captain New Japan. ROH tag team champions Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish, faced Alex Shelley and Kushida for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight tag team championships but were not victorious. Also, Jeff Jarrett has apparently joined Bullet Club. He came to the ring to protect Tanahashi from Bullet Club after his match with AJ Styles but smashed him with a guitar instead, revealing a Bullet Club shirt under his suit. Jarrett was on hand to finalize a partnership between Global Force Wrestling and New Japan.

And now the smarks complain that Bullet Club jumped the shark

Results from the recent Evolve 31-33 shows from this past weekend in Florida:

Evolve 31

Style Battle tournament: Drew Gulak defeated Timothy Thatcher

Style Battle tournament: Biff Busick defeated James Raideen

Lince Dorado, Cruz and Rios defeated Jesus De Leon, JT Dunn and David Starr (Juicy Product)

Matt Sydal defeated Johnny Gargano

Anthony Nese and Caleb Conley (Premier Athlete Brand) defeated Ricochet and Rich Swann (The Inner City Machine Guns)

Drew Galloway defeated Chris Hero to win the Evolve championship

Evolve 32

Drew Galloway defeated Anthony Nese to retain the Evolve championship

Style Battle tournament: James Raideen defeated Drew Gulak

Style Battle tournament: Timothy Thatcher defeated Biff Busick

Caleb Conley defeated Johnny Gargano

Rich Swann defeated Chris Hero to become the #1 contender for the Evolve championship

Ricochet defeated Matt Sydal to retain the Dragon Gate USA Open the Freedom Gate championship

Evolve 33

Trevor Lee and Zane Riley defeated Jason Cade and Aaron Epic

Juicy Product defeated Dos Ben Dejos

Anthony Nese defeated Lince Dorado

Chris Hero defeated Caleb Conley

Style Battle tournament: Timothy Thatcher defeated James Raideen

Style Battle tournament: Biff Busick defeated Drew Gulak

Thatcher is declared the winner of the Style Battle tournament as he and Busick held the same record and Thatcher defeated Busick at Evolve 32. Hero also came out after the match and attacked Thatcher and Gulak.

Rich Swann defeated Johnny Gargano

Evolve champ vs Open the Freedom Gate champ: Ricochet defeated Drew Galloway

The Queen of Extreme Francine will be making a few appearances coming up. For a long time she's distanced herself from the business so if you want to meet her, these might be your only shots. Monster Mania Cherry Hill NJ 8/15-17, Legends of the Ring, Monroe NJ Sept 20 11am-2pm and Chiller Theater 10/24-26 in Parsippany, NJ

Injuries to AR Fox and Trent have forced several changes to PWG’s Battle of Los Angeles tournament on August 29-31. Bobby Fish will replace AR Fox and take on Brian Cage on Night One and Zach Sabre Jr. will take Trent’s place in the six man tag match, joining Chuck Taylor and Kenny Omega against The Young Bucks and Adam Cole. Candice LeRae will replace Trent in the tournament itself and will take on Rich Swann on Night Two.

House of Glory in Ridgewood, New York is hosting a one night tournament this August 16 to crown their first world champion as well as a battle royal to decide a #1 contender. The tournament will be:

Ricochet vs Marq Quen

Jay Lethal vs Anthony Gangone

Drew Gulak vs Shane Strickland

Brian XL vs JT Dunn

Chikara is hosting Permis De Tuer this weekend in Quebec, Montreal, Canada, August 16. The lineup is:

Icarus, The Throwbacks (Dasher Hatfield Mr. Touchdown), The Colony (Fire Ant and Worker Ant) vs The Flood

Archibald Peck vs Juan Francisco de Coronado

3.0 (Shane Matthews and Scott Parker) vs The Colony XTreme Force (Missile Assault Ant and Orbit Adventure Ant)

Kodama vs Ashley Remington

Silver Ant vs Proletariat Boar of Moldova

Smash Wrestling’s Super Showdown II, August 17. Scheduled is:

Super Smash Brothers vs The Young Bucks

Chris Hero vs Matt Cross for the Smash Wrestling Championship

Kimber Bomb (Cherry Bomb and Kimber Lee) vs LuFisto and Vanessa Kraven

Johnny Gargano vs Tyson Dux

Jay Lethal vs Brent Banks

Indy Minute - Weekly independent wrestling new round up

  Welcome back to the Delco Elbow Drop for the extended Indy Minute – all the great indy wrestling news you heard on the Ring Rust Radio podcast and a whole lot more.

  The signing of KENTA is helping to build the NXT brand in Japan. Reports are that NXT will soon start airing on J Sports, a satellite company in Japan, and it's believed that KENTA will debut in NXT in September.  WWE also just signed a deal to bring NXT, Raw, Smackdown, Main Event, and all PPVs to OSN which serves North Africa and the Middle East.

  Kevin Steen has wrestled his final dates for Ring of Honor. Steen defeated Tomasso Ciampa in Minneapolis, lost to Silas Young in a no DQ match in Cincinnati, and defeated Steve Corino in Dearborn in his final match.

  Several matches have been announced for Ring of Honor’s return to The Armory in Philadelphia on August 9. In addition to the Young Bucks versus Bad Influence (Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian) and Michael Elgin taking on Cedric Alexander for the ROH World title, recently announced matches are:

            Jay Lethal vs ACH for the ROH TV title

            Silas Young vs Brian Kendrick

            Tomasso Ciampa vs Rocky Romero

            War Machine (Hanson and Rowe) vs The Briscoe Brothers

  ROH is teaming up with Preston City Wrestling in England for a 2-day, 3-show event on November 28, 29 entitled “UK Supershow of Honor.” Hit this link for more info.

  Evolve, a promotion closely associated with Dragon Gate USA, is rebooting its product starting with its upcoming events, Evolve 31, 32 and 33 on August 8-10 in Florida. With the reboot, Evolve is returning to its roots and putting more emphasis on win/loss records with regards to how matches are booked and who gets title shots and should be a great jumping off point for fans not familiar with the company.

  Word is that AR Fox suffered a wrist injury and will need surgery and be out for several months. No word on who his replacement in the PWG 2014 Battle of Los Angeles will be, though.

  Rumors that a former UFC star has been training at the WWE Performance Center. Speculation is that it's Rashad Evans, though the former light heavyweight champ has stated he wouldn't consider wrasslin’ until after he's done fighting, which he's put at another 4-5 years.

  To me, the most likely person is Chael Sonnen. Word is the person is "older than a usual WWE potential developmental wrestler" but has all the attributes of a WWE wrestler. Chael has proven to be a master on the mic and with that and his athletic prowess, he would easily be able to make the transition to WWE.

  Shannon Moore announced his retirement from pro wrestling last week. His final appearance will be at WrestleCade in North Carolina on November 29 where he will be reuniting with 3-Count partners Evan Karagias and Shane "Hurricane" Helms. Moore has wrestled for WCW, TNA and WWE in his nearly 20 year career.

 

  FWE in Brooklyn, New York will be hosting events on October 3 and 4. Announced for Night 1 is Young Bucks vs Bad Influence and Drew Galloway vs Trent? and Night 2 will see Tommy Dreamer vs Drew Galloway.

  Steven O'Neill, of Extreme Rising, sent out an odd press release last weekend claiming that Luke Hawx nor the Extreme Rising title would be at the Maryland Championship Wrestling Shamrock Cup show on Saturday July 19 - which was news to everyone involved as O'Neill hadn't contacted anyone mentioned regarding this issue. MCW president Dan McDevitt also issued a statement saying the card would run as advertised and if Hawx wanted to bring the Extreme Rising belt, he was welcome to.
  It was an odd move by O'Neill as this was his first public comments from him since numerous Extreme Rising events were cancelled out of the blue with no refunds issued to fans who had already purchased tickets. Definitely not a the way to build good will if they are planning on ever running another Rising show.

  The MCW show went on as planned and Matt Hardy is still the MCW champion and new Extreme Rising champ after defeating Luke Hawx in a crazy TLC match. Hawx also brought the Extreme Rising belt and claimed its now the "Big F'n Arms" championship since Rising is dead. Afterwards Hardy put over Hawx on the mic and said he deserved to keep the Rising belt forever and gave it back to him, since he took a risk being sued and chased by attorneys for bringing and defending it.
  Also, DROLIX is the Shamrock Cup winner, outlasting Papadon, Shane Strickland, Bolt Brady, Bo Nekoda, and Bu Ku Dao in an elimination match for the Cup. 3 time winner Christian York was there to award the winner.
 

  Apparently IWA-Mid South is promoting shows again. According to the IWA-Mid South Facebook page, they will be hosting the Ted Petty Invitational tournament on September 13 and 14 in New Albany, Indiana.

  The line up so far includes Michael Elgin, Chris Hero, Tomasso Ciampa, BJ Whitmer and two names I don’t recognize – Hy Zaya and Shane Mercer. Keep an eye on their Facebook page for more participants.

  I wasn’t aware that IWA-MS had hosted a TPI in many years – or that IWA-MS was even still an active company. According to a Wikipedia page for the event, they hosted a TPI in 2013 though I don’t remember hearing about it. But before that, the last one they hosted was in 2008, as tournaments for 2009 and 2010 were announced but cancelled.

Indy Minute: Weekly independent wrestling recap

  Welcome back Delco Elbow Drop and Ring Rust Radio fans to another edition of the expanded Indy Minute – all the most important independent wrestling news from the past week. Let’s get right into it!

  Joey Styles commented on Twitter that he would commentate for NXT if asked. He even said it reminded him of ECW. (And this isn’t indy news but I just saw it on Styles’ Twitter – you’ll be able to play as Cody Rhodes’ new character Stardust in the upcoming WWE2K14. I guess this means Stardust is going to be around for quite some time.)

  On Saturday at the former ECW Arena, during the filming of the documentary “Wrestling with Disaster,” The Blue Meanie, Shane Douglas, and The Pitbulls were inducted into the building’s Hardcore Hall of Fame. Al Snow was on hand to personally induct Blue Meanie.

  Documentary is about the hardships and tragedies faced by several professional wrestlers who have competed at every level of the sport. It will also give a backstage peek at how an Indy show is run, lockerroom atmosphere and such.

 

  Harlem Bravado commented on Twitter that TNA reached out to he and his brother but declined them, saying they're happy in Evolve/Dragon Gate USA.

  Larry Legend, occasional ring announcer for CZW, posted some crazy stuff from Tournament of Death 13 this past weekend on his Twitter and Instagram accounts. There was also a Vine video of Jun Kasai winning the tournament, pinning Masada with a splash off scaffolding through a bundle of light tubes, but it’s since been taken down. (I was also thinking about linking some of those videos but decided against it – deathmatches aren’t for everyone.)

  There were rumors before the tournament that TOD 13 might be the last hurrah for the annual deathmatch tournament, with talk of the Delaware State Athletic Commission coming down on CZW for its bloodletting much like PA did over 10 years ago. But I guess we’ll need to wait until next summer to see if the rumors are true or not.

  Twitter user @SenorLARIATO posted a pic of Kevin Steen, Prince Devitt and Bad Luck Fale doing the Too Sweet taunt at a Revolution Pro show in Britain last week. If not for the fact that Devitt is out of New Japan now, I’d say this is perfect dirtsheet bait to get people thinking they’ll see Steen in a Bullet Club shirt any day now. 

 

  SMASH Wrestling  in Toronto, Ontario is offering their latest show, Rival Schools, for free digital download. The show features Matt Cross/MDogg20 defending his championship, Chris Hero taking on Takaaki Watanabe, Michael Elgin versus ACH in Elgin’s final Ontario Indy appearance before his ROH contract takes effect, the Super Smash Bros, Kyle O'Reilly and more.

 

  Ring of Honor Best in the World is this Sunday, the first ROH show to be offered on real deal Pay-Per-View. Adam Cole defends his World Championship against Michael Elgin, The Briscoes take on Matt Hardy and Michael Bennett, reDRagon defends the tag team championships against the returning Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian, the team of Bad Influence and much more. There are also rumors that this may be Kevin Steen’s final big ROH show before heading to WWE developmental later this summer.

 

  Drew McIntyre recently started following Dixie Carter on Twitter. Could this be a sign that the former WWE Superstar is headed to TNA in the near future?

  Prince Devitt tweeted a pic from a newspaper of Barack Obama throwing up the Too Sweet taunt. Clearly, Obama is joining Bullet Club.

When you're nWo, you're nWo for life.