WWE Hall Of Famer “Stone Cold” Steve Austin recently spent some time to review the NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn IV live WWE Network special on a recent episode of his Steve Austin Show podcast.
On the NXT special being a better overall show than WWE SummerSlam: “To me, my opinion, both shows [TakeOver and SummerSlam] delivered. I give a big thumb’s up to both of them. If I was to compare both of the shows, I would say I probably preferred the NXT show over the SummerSlam show, but I give them both a lot of credit. It was a great weekend for [pro] wrestling because I really enjoyed the NXT show [and] I really enjoyed SummerSlam. I don’t always get a chance to say that and I’m always glad when they go out there. The crowd wasn’t into a couple of matches, but I think every match that happened was solid or solid in its own right. Some of them were a little tough. The US title match was a little tough. By and large, it was a great weekend for the WWE.”
On the Moustache Mountain vs. Undisputed Era being the best match of the entire weekend and the best tag-team match in a long time: “My favorite match was a couple of tag team guys that I didn’t know too much about. I had seen some of their individual work, but I hadn’t seen their tag work. Probably my favorite match of the entire weekend was the NXT tag team title match [with] the champions, The Undisputed Era going against the Moustache Mountain guys. That was an awesome-ass tag team match. Goddang, dude, I’ve seen one of the best tag matches I’ve seen in a long ass time.”
“Man, I thought everybody looked really, really good, but it seems that Tyler Bate, there’s just something about that kid. He just has some kind of x-factor to him, just the way he goes to deliver his s–t or the sense of urgency. I mean, Roderick Strong is right there, so is Trent Seven, but to me, that Tyler Bate was just kind of the spark plug in this match, if you will.”
On The Velveteen Dream: “Man, the guy is athletic. He has a great gimmick. There’s so much room to grow that gimmick or that character and he has bought into it 100%. So athletic, great gimmick… The kid’s still very green, but he’s very entertaining and he’s a natural showman. Obviously, like [podcast guest Wade Keller] said, there’s a lot of Rick Rude influences there. They kind of lost the crowd a little bit there during this [TakeOver] match [vs. EC3]. He’s a big time seller on some of the moves. He arches his back. He kind of reminds me of The Rock in a way, just the salesmanship of certain things. But, man, for a guy that’s still pretty damn new to the [pro wrestling] business, but the gimmick is so over-the-top. I mean, the kid looks like a rockstar, so whatever happens to him, the sky’s the limit for this guy. The gimmick is there, the character is there, he’s all the way in, and he just has star written all over him, so when he puts it all together or continues to put it all together, I mean, we’ll see what happens with this kid, but it’s an outstanding gimmick.”
Check out the complete episode of the Steve Austin Show podcast at PodcastOne.com.
