NXT 54

March 1, 2011 – Cleveland, Ohio

The crowd turns on the show out of the gate because they want their hometown hero Derrick Bateman to still be in contention. Johnny Curtis and Brodus Clay cut promos on each other, and I realize that Clay has been bullying Curtis the whole season and I didn’t even notice. Well, I’m glad they ran the angle either way.

Brodus Clay def. Johnny Curtis
This was a long (at about six minutes) squash, but Clay was shockingly able to keep it mostly interesting in all that time. Given how much Curtis got owned here, I’m shocked with the way this episode wrapped up. **

Daniel Bryan makes good on his promise to punch Bateman in the face should he get eliminated. Then he gets the rookie fired up for his tag team match. This was a nice swan song for the team.

They show the Rock’s long promo from Raw in full. It wasn’t even in the arena, it was a pre-recorded video. The whole segment looked ridiculous on this show.

Derrick Bateman & Conor O’Brian def. Jacob Novak & Byron Saxton
They have the good sense to give the Cleveland crowd and the season 4 audience the cathartic Bateman win that we desperately needed. After what was a solid little tag match (the learning curve for the rookies the last few weeks has been nuts. They actually had a few really dramatic tag team formula moments in this), Novak walks out on Saxton for no reason. The finish was a little botched, but otherwise this was fun. **¼

I just realized that they didn’t preview season 5, so who knows what will happen next week?! Anyway, Curtis wins the season. Why did they job him out so badly earlier in the show if this was what was going to happen? Curtis and R-Truth have earned at tag title shot. I can find no evidence of that match ever happening. Curtis did get a tag title shot a year and a half later on NXT TV after the reboot, but that had nothing to do with this.