Previously on the Best and Worst of NXT: Timothy Thatcher confirmed the theory that he is not Matt Riddle’s bro by abandoning him to lose the Tag Team Championship, attacking him backstage, and then attacking him again after he lost a one-on-one match. Also, NXT Superstars D-Generation X announced an In Your House special.

If you’d like to read previous installments of the Best and Worst of NXT, you can do that here. Follow With Spandex on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter, where everything and everyone is terrible.

And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for May 20, 2020.

Best: Shotzi Blackheart Tanks

Up first this week I have to talk about this Shotzi Blackheart promo, in which she sounds like she’s a contestant on MTV’s Next.

“My name is Shotzi Blackheart, from Oakland, California. My motto in life is T … C … B; take care of business! I am balls to the wall! Who’s your daddy? I’m your daddy! Some people like to take Ubers, some people like to take cars … but I like to ROCK, and this is how I roll!”

“My name is Shotzi, I’m 27 years old, and I love tanks! And after our date, the boys will ALL be saying tanks!” By the end of it she sounded like Rick Sanchez listing off all his imaginary catchphrases. “I am just like tank. Because tanks don’t give a shit! UH OH, SOMERSAULT JUMP! LICK LICK LICK M’BALLS!” I love it. I wish the show as just two hours of Shotzi doing dramatic poses on a tank and saying asinine shit about how she’s a TESTICLE WEREWOLF who ROCKS YOUR BUTTHOLES and TANKS NO PRISONERS.

Also I wish we’d gotten a cutaway where Triple H is watching and asks, “Wait, is that what a tank looks like? I’ve been calling jeeps tanks!”

Best: You’ll Get Caught Up In The Kross Fire

Going from one “daddy” to another, Tommaso Ciampa interrupts Karrion Kross’ victory over the dreaded LIAM to challenge him for NXT TakeOver: In Our Gym. Ciampa should watch himself, though, because if he fought gentle Cleveland baby Johnny Gargano for the better part of a dramatically produced hour and lost to a kick in the butt, what’s he gonna do when he’s in there against, for all intents and purposes, … the Anti-Christ? What’s Karrion Kross’ character, exactly? A guy who teams up with his goth girlfriend to bring about the Biblical end times with foggy suplexes?

P.S. this is for real the best Northern Light suplex I’ve ever seen.

Kross and Scarlett are money, and easily the freshest thing on these quarantine shows. Their entrance is only going to get better and more fine-tuned the more they do it. I hope Kross completely wrecks Ciampa at TakeOver and beats him as easily as he beat LIAM. Let’s raise the stakes on this shit and cut it out with the hour of mindless kick-outs.

Worst: [squints in editor]

Dexter Loomis vs. Roderick Strong was solid — I like that Loomis is so deranged he can’t feel pain so he’s like the serial killer version of Lenny form Of Mice and Men, and I especially love that a member of the Undisputed Era won a match by their goddamn self — but I want to talk about the post-match … well, I wanted to call it a “stunt,” but I guess it’s more accurate to call it a, “hilarious edit.”

So, Loomis tries to counter the Strong Hold by twisting it into a roll-up, but Strong just sits down on it and pins him. Loomis, being a poor sport and also a serial killer, handles the loss by slithering over to the apron on his belly and grabbing Strong in the Jake Hager Clutch. Undisputed Era show up to make the save but can’t get Loomis off Roddy, so Adam Cole preps for (presumably) a superkick. That gets him jumped from behind by Loomis’ also very weird friend, the Velveteen Dream. Dream goes up top and hits a Purple Rainmaker from the top rope to the cement floor. It would’ve been a hell of a visual if the cut hadn’t been so obvious, and they’d ignored some pretty crucial editing elements like Dream’s legs being on the right of Cole on the way down, but somehow landing off to his left. See if you can see what I’m talking about:

Maybe he swung his legs over at the last minute, like Lacey Evans? I really hope someone got fired for this blunder!

Best, Then Worst: The WWE Brands Super Show Starring Charlotte Flair

The ratings aren’t going to go up unless Charlotte Flair is featured heavily on three shows per week, so here she is popping in at the end of Io Shirai vs. Rhea Ripley to get involved and set up the triple threat they probably had in mind for Bianca Belair before they called her up to Raw and then immediately put her to the side in favor of pick-up basketball games and hilarious axe throwing contests.

I could’ve lived without every aspect of the finish, especially if it’s just to set up a triple threat where Charlotte can lose the title without getting pinned, but 10 minutes of Ripley vs. Shirai is always welcome. I’m excited to see what Charlotte does this Friday on Smackdown, and how she follows it up on Raw, and how she follows that up on NXT, and how that builds momentum heading into Smackdown. Can we get Charlotte on 205 Live already? She’s billed at 150 pounds, which is definitely not what a 5-foot-10 person coated in muscles would weigh, but I’m sure she’d make the limit, and I’m sure she’d kick the ever-loving shit out of the Bollywood Boyz.

Best/Worst: This Week In The Largely Unnecessary Interim NXT Cruiserweight Championship Tournament

Mr. Monday Night Akira Tozawa uses all his Wednesday stat buffs to try to top El Hijo del Fantasma, but it’s not meant to be. To make matters worse, he forgets about all the recent muggings and kidnappings and wanders out into the Full Sail parking lot, where he’s jumped by the Lucha Car Party. Two notes:

• Love that Ultimo Dragon shirt. We got Liger for a match in NXT, can we bring in Ultimo Dragon to wrestle KUSHIDA or something?
• The fact that Fantasma is the only guy to avoid a Conquistador conquering in the parking lot and the weird blocking of this attack where he’s trapped in his car and can’t help definitely means he’s the one behind the kidnappings, doesn’t it? I’m into it, don’t get me wrong, I just want to find out Joaquin Wilde and Raul Mendoza got taxidermied and displayed in his home.

On the other side of the NXT1 Classic we’ve got Drake Maverick pinning KUSHIDA, which is a sentence fragment I never thought I’d type. After the pin (which was thankfully a total surprise, and not a situation where KUSHIDA was ever in any real danger of getting his ass kicked and beaten), NXT General Manager Byron Saxton (or whatever) pops in to tell us that thanks to a three-way tie in the block, we’re getting a playoff triple threat between KUSHIDA, Maverick, and Maverick’s very nice and helpful friend who DEFINITELY won’t do anything shady to cost him the block, Jake Atlas. Congratulations on being the only guy in your block to lose, Tony Nese.

The Atlas thing is a pessimistic joke, by the way, as WWE’s kinda beaten me into accepting that nobody who helps you is really your friend and life’s every man for himself. Real life concerns about the angle aside, it would be funny as shit though if Jake Atlas spent weeks being like, “no, Drake Maverick, BELIEVE IN YOUR DREAMS,” only to roll him up, eliminate him from the tournament, and send him packing out of WWE entirely with a, “HA! STOLE YOUR DREAMS!”

Fantasma vs. KUSHIDA seems like the obvious final, but it’s too good to be true, isn’t it? Maverick finding a way to get all the way to the finals only to find out that (surprise!) this luchador has been in charge of all the luchador attacks going down at Full Sail would be pretty compelling, I think. And then Jordan Devlin shows up with the actual Cruiserweight Championship again and is all, “WHY ARE THERE SO MANY LIGEROS ALL OF A SUDDEN, WHAT’S GOING ON?”

Also On This Episode

Danny Burch and Oney Lorcan, who are deeply in love with kicking ass, get a strong tag team win over Ovaries. There is so much room to grow for a team of basic-looking bald guys who are so into kicking ass that you can practically see their blood boiling. Plus, we never really got a good enough followup to Oney and Twoey’s RAGE REVIVAL bit.

Mia Yim takes out Santana Garrett this week and runs afoul of Candice LeRae and Johnny Gargano, the corrupted and deluded married couple who have let their sense of self-worth cloud their judgment and make them forget Keith Lee exists. So they pick on Mia and start shit, and Keith jogs out to make the save. Honestly, I want to see how high Keith could throw Johnny. I bet he could hit the lights if he really tried. Huge bonus points if this sets up the match for In Your House, and they actually just let all four of them wrestle without the dumb “mixed tag team match” rules. Johnny and Mia are like the exact same size, nobody cares what you think about bone density. People are getting kidnapped by masked wrestlers in the parking lot, we aren’t doing an MMA sim over here.

Damian Priest, as good as he is, really looks like an unfinished gimmick now that Killer Kross is around. Kross’ “FALL AND PREY” side graphics are in the same flaming letters as Priest’s entrance video and everything. Regardless, Priest wants to “live forever” by I guess eating Finn Bálor’s heart and stealing his power, or whatever, because Finn needs something to do while WALTER’s waiting for the okay to fly across the Atlantic and open-hand slap Finn’s entire rib cage out of his body.

Finally, Timothy Thatcher and Matt Riddle agree to have a cage match where you can only win by knockout or submission. Please, for the love of God, I’m BEGGING YOU to bring back the Lion’s Den match for this. I know y’all have it in storage still. Give me Thatcher and Riddle grapplefucking inside an enormous reusable K-Cup, please and thank you. Get Dan Severn to ref it. LET’S DO THIS.

Best: Top 10 Comments Of The Week

PTI_IMTOMMY

That Shotzi promo package was like Connor’s “catchphrase verse” from Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

Clay

Kushida must feel terrible that this is the time line he was stranded in

Pdragon619

You know it just occurred to me, what if Charly calling Edge/Orton the best match of all time was actually just low key Savage Charly sarcasm? Like what’s more cruel than putting the burden of getting a five star match out of Orton on Edge’s shoulders.

Taylor Swish

@BrodieLee: “It’s Wednesday. You know what that means.”
Tozawa: Yes!!!

Mr. Bliss

Forget about weight classes, Keith Lee is, pounce-for-pounce, the best athlete in the world.

FeltLuke

Yes he is prone to sneak attacks, but Ciampa truly understands how terrifying being seen and slowly, confidently walking towards someone to woop their ass can be.

Caz

KUSHIDA wrestling this match like Maverick’s arm is gonna be his gift for Becky Lynch’s baby shower

DEVLIN: “why do they keep forgetting to call it the *Interim* NXT Cruiserweight Championship Tournament?”

SAMI ZAYN: “oh Jordan, you beautiful tropical fish.”

Baron Von Raschke

Jake Atlas looking like Bruce Campbell in Spider-Man about to announce BONESAW!

notJames

Keith Lee: “Who in the Blue Hell records themselves eating dinner!?”
Instagram: “EVERYONE!!!”

That’s it for this week’s Best and Worst of NXT. We’re not sure you ever actually read this part or do what we ask (or if you even scroll down through the top 10 comments of the week), but hey, it would really help us if you commented down below and shared the column if you liked or laughed at anything. The world’s tough, and that makes this kind of thing a lot easier.

Join us here next week for an Adam Cole championship anniversary celebration, KUSHIDA vs. Drake Maverick vs. Jake Atlas for a match against El Hijo del Fantasma, and Stallion Matt versus Regular Horse Timothy in a cage match. See you then!

Ever since she came on the scene in late 2018, Megan Thee Stallion has made no secret of her love for anime. However, while her music video aesthetics embraced every look from blaxploitation movies to the “yee-haw agenda” to dominatrix vibes — sometimes all at once — she’s somehow avoided using the colorful visuals associated with her favorite My Hero Academia character Todoroki in her videos — until now.

Probably thanks in part to quarantine protocols preventing more elaborate live-action shoots, Meg’s video for her viral hit “Savage” finally fully embraces the aesthetic of her beloved Japanese cartoon shows by way of some very video game-esque CGI. Directed by Jude MC, the video crafts a Ghost In The Shell-style cyberpunk narrative that sees Meg’s avatar shooting her way through hallways full of goons, riding motorcycles on futuristic freeways, and of course, doing the TikTok-favorite choreography. With character designs by one of hip-hop’s favorite illustrators McFlyy (who’s worked with Chris Brown, Nike, Russell Westbrook, and YG), the video is the perfect blueprint for Megan’s love of animation to build upon in future projects.

“Savage” is the third single from Megan’s Suga EP, which released in March of this year.

Watch Megan Thee Stallion’s video game-influenced “Savage” video above.

If nothing below suits your sensibilities, check out our guide to What You Should Watch On Streaming Right Now.

Celebrity Escape Room (NBC, 8:00 p.m.) — Jack Black (as the Game Master) will make Adam Scott, Lisa Kudrow, Ben Stiller, and Courteney Cox work under intense pressure to kick off NBC’s Red Nose Night.

The Red Nose Day Special (NBC, 9:00 p.m.) — A jam-packed lineup of musicians, actors, comedians, and filmmakers will come together to benefit the cause of young people affected by poverty.

Patton Oswalt: I Love Everything (Netflix stand-up special) — The Emmy and Grammy winning comedian brings his newest comedy special to the streaming giant. Look forward to anecdotes involving a full-scale Millennium Falcon replica and how home buying gets tied to the term “suicide squad.” Stick around for the post-credits bonus, in which Patton introduces another one-hour comedy special, Bob Rubin: Oddities & Rarities.

The Great (Hulu series) — Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult star in this period dramedy. He’s the Emperor of Russia, and she’s his bride-to-be, and let’s just say that The Favourite fans are going to love this absurd series.

Stargirl (DC Universe series, The CW) — High-schooler Courtney Whitmore picks up the cosmic staff and Stargirl mantle, exuding joy while taking out some bad guys in the process. Joel McHale stays sarcastic as Starman, but this is mostly Stargirl’s vehicle, with Luke Wilson playing Starman’s former sidekick and Courtney’s stepdad.

White Lines (Netflix series) — Following the disappearance and death of a legendary DJ, his sister returns to Ibiza to help investigate what really happened. This leads to dark discoveries about herself as the lies and cover-ups of the dance club circuit surface.

Defending Jacob (Apple TV limited series) — Chris Evans’ dad/ex-prosecutor character attempts to pull off a few last-ditch efforts to prove the innocence of his son, who’s been charged with murder.

Burden Of Truth (CW, 8:00 p.m.) — The first case for Joanna and Billy gets a little ugly with a tough verdict on the horizon. Meanwhile, a high school reunion is afoot.

In The Dark (CW, 9:00 p.m.) — Extracurricular activities are interrupting all the drug dealing business. Max is frustrated, and Jess is in Nia’s crosshairs.

Siren (Freeform, 10:00 p.m.) — An attack on Bristol Cove takes place while the gang looks to cure Xander’s illness, and Ryn gets a blast from the past.

Desus And Mero: Jesse Williams

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert: Steve Carell, Milky Chance, and Jack Johnson

The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon: Sofia Vergara, Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, and Courtney Barnett

Jimmy Kimmel Live: Kevin Hart

The Late Late Show With James Corden: Rob Gronkowski, Venus Williams, Haim

After news last week that Major League Soccer was formalizing a plan to play out a tournament at the ESPN Wide World of Sports in Orlando next month, new details have arrived via The Athletic, including the stakes when it comes to a possible regular season as well as the grouping of teams and the tournament format.

Paul Tenoria and Sam Stejskal reported on Thursday that all 26 teams would venture to Orlando in early June to begin crafting a “bubble” and practicing together at the massive ESPN campus new Walt Disney World. There, teams will be split into four groups for competition, with six teams in three of the groups and eight teams in the final group. After five games of group play, the top two squads from each group would move onto a knockout-style competition to complete the tournament.

These group games would count toward MLS league standings, The Athletic reports, “with the intention being for clubs eventually to continue to play regular season games in home markets later this year.” It’s still unclear what the reward would be for the winner of the Orlando bubble tournament.

In order to reduce travel, MLS already has determined no inter-conference games would be part of any possible regular season, and Nashville SC will jump to the East. The league, according to The Athletic, will also allow nine teams into the playoffs in an attempt to increase revenue for the most high-profile part of the season.

Considering time has no meaning anymore, it’s easy to forget that Mission: Impossible 7 was the first blockbuster film to abruptly abandon production all the way back in February. The latest film in the franchise was preparing to shoot in Italy just as that country began to explode with cases from the pandemic, and it wasn’t long before all of Hollywood began shutting down shortly thereafter.

But now Mission: Impossible 7 could be facing another first from the ongoing health crisis: A recasting of a major role. According to Deadline, Esai Morales (Ozark, Titans) could be replacing Nicolas Hoult as the villain.

The delay put Hoult in conflict with another commitment. This is going to happen often as films resume production with talent that has contracted out fall slots with other pictures, when there was no thought about a pandemic.

The picture was scheduled to be released on July 23, 2021 but that seems like a mission impossible because of COVID-19. The picture has been re-dated for November 19, 2021 to account for the delay.

Considering Hoult’s role was announced back in January and Morales is a last-minute replacement, we’re assuming this isn’t the exciting new addition to the cast that writer-director Christopher McQuarrie recently teased. While stopping by the Mission: Impossible podcast Light The Fuse, McQuarrie seemed particularly jazzed about hopefully landing the mystery actor. Via The Hollywood Reporter:

“There is someone we were talking to before the world blew up,” the director said. “An actor I was very excited about. I don’t know where that is, because we had talked days before [the shutdown] and it was an incredibly exciting casting coup.”

Mission: Impossible 7 is just one of two films in an overall story that McQuarrie is planning to tell back-to-back. Whenever the seventh installment wraps, the team will hop right into Mission: Impossible 8, which McQuarrie has already begun writing while waiting for Hollywood to fire back up.

(Via Deadline)

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Lady Gaga’s latest album, Chromatica, comes out in just over a week. Ahead of then, Gaga sat down with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe for a wide-ranging conversation about the record. At one point, the pair spoke about Ariana Grande’s appearance on the album, and Gaga discussed what it was like to collaborate with the fellow pop superstar.

Gaga spoke about how they connected in the studio and how she pushed Grande on a creative level:

“Her and I connected right away and she was so wonderful. And I think maybe she assumed that it [would] be that she came in and I was like, ‘Here, just sing this and thank you so much for your time.’ Right? But instead, I asked her what she needed, how she wanted to do things. When we were vocally producing her, […] I was sitting at the console and talking to her. And then I remember I said to her, ‘OK, now everything that you care about while you sing, I want you to forget it and just sing. And by the way, while you’re doing that, I’m going to dance in front of you,’ because we had this huge big window. […] And she was like, ‘Oh my God. Oh my God, I can’t, I can’t. I don’t know. Oh my God. Okay, okay.’ And then I did it and she sang, and she started to do things with her voice that were different. And it was the joy of two artists going, ‘I see you.’”

Gaga then revealed why at one point, she was “too ashamed to hang out” with Grande. The story starts with Gaga crying in the studio:

“She was like, ‘You’re going to be OK. Call me, here’s my number.’ And she was so persistent. She would try over and over again to be friends with me. And I was too ashamed to hang out with her, because I didn’t want to project all of this negativity onto something that was healing and so beautiful. And eventually she called me on my sh*t. She was, ‘You’re hiding.’ And I was like, ‘I am hiding. I’m totally hiding.’ And then this friendship blossomed.”

Find more from the interview here.

Jaden Smith is back with the new video for his Syre standout “Ninety,” two and half years after the debut album’s initial release. The video opens with the subtitle, “This is a twisted love story,” and tracks the young rapper as he roams a desolate landscape reminiscing about a lost love at either dawn or dusk. Flashbacks of Jaden’s good times with his paramour flash between his solo wanderings, with occasional captions detailing his state of mind.

Syre was a surprise breakout in 2017, garnering a highly engaged fanbase of enthusiastic supporters in its wake, which he leveraged on a slew of impressive tours and festival performances, including one alongside his dear old dad, Will Smith, at Coachella. Jaden followed up Syre two years later, introducing a dark alter ego with Erys and solidifying his newfound stardom into something of a veteran position among the under-30 hip-hop set. He closed out 2019 with a joint tour alongside his sister Willow then went radio silent for much of 2020, aside from sporadic examples of his signature, mysterious tweets. However, last week he determined that it was time for a “re-up” of his merch collection from his Syre era, and to celebrate, gifted fans the latest video from the project — if not the last.

Watch Jaden’s “Ninety” video above.

The world remains home due to the pandemic while LA-based singer Mike Milosh, who assumes the moniker Rhye, keeps up his creativity. The singer is encouraging listeners to continue to seek out the beauty in the world with his picturesque track “Beautiful.” Now, Rhye follows the single with an intricately-filmed video to accompanying the shimmering track.

Though Rhye’s “Beautiful” video features a few characters, the entire visual was shot maintaining social distancing practices. Directed and shot by Rhye himself, the musician was able to execute each shot while keeping his distance using a telephoto lens. Showing intertwining clips of women moving through a scenic desert landscape, Rhye’s visual reflects the song’s theme of finding beauty in everyday life.

In an interview with Vanity Fair alongside the video’s debut, Rhye detailed his inspiration while songwriting: “When I’m working on a song, it’s like the rest of the world falls away, and I’m in this weird little tiny world — it’s just me and the song that I’m working on. You’re in that very sacred, special place when you’re making something.”

Ahead of the visual’s release, Rhye detailed his 72-hour livestream project “A Beautiful Weekend,” offering his advice for remaining sane during quarantine:

“As we all share in this collective crazy moment that is quarantine, there are many ways to deal with the isolation, many ways we can truly fall into ourselves. For me, celebrating the beauty that is my partner has been a huge inspiration for me and a saving grace. Beauty is something we truly need to be open to in this moment. Find it in music, art, your loved ones, or yourself.”

Watch Rhye’s “Beautiful” video above.

Some Good News — the web series that pretends things are good when they are, in fact, bad — has been a huge hit on YouTube, with millions of viewers tuning in to watch John Krasinski throw virtual proms, officiate weddings, and get Brad Pitt to do the weather. “No matter how hard things get, there is always good in the world. Thank you all for making this show so very special. We will see you again,” The Office star said in the most recent episode — it was also the final episode, at least with Krasinski as host.

Following a “massive bidding war,” Some Good News “has been licensed to in a rich deal with ViacomCBS,” according to the Hollywood Reporter. “CBS All Access, which will be rebranded this summer and bolstered with more originals from across the ViacomCBS portfolio, will have the first window for the new episodes before they move to a number of the company’s linear networks.” Krasinski will executive produce the series and have an “on-air presence,” but not host. Is it too soon to suggest Morbo?

“Could not be more excited and proud to be partnering with CBS/Viacom to be able to bring Some Good News to so many more people!” Krasinski said. “Our goal was to create a news show dedicated entirely to good news. Never did I expect to be joining the ranks of such a historic news organization as CBS.”

You know what’s better than some good news? Great News. Bring that show back, too.

(Via the Hollywood Reporter)