But now, Bonds is on trial for perjury, and I just don’t care. He’s plastered all over ESPN and the sports pundits seem to be saying that this is some sort of big deal, though WHY is a mystery to me. I mean, sure, it’s a big deal to Bonds who could theoretically go to jail (but won’t because, let’s face it, he’s an athlete—Michael Vick’s situation seemed to be a statistical anomaly). But for the rest of us, I don’t get it. 

Bonds has been retired from baseball for a few years now and it’s not like he’s a trainer or coach or anything still attached to the league, unless there are things I don’t know about him. But like the trial, I just don’t care about that, either.

I do care about NXT though, even though I’m not sure what that says about me. So let’s get to it!

Segment 1: Maryse and Matt Striker are in the ring and introduce us to our rookies, who hit the ring presently, as their pros look on from the stage. Maryse starts off by embarrassing herself when they toss up the leaderboard for immunity points on the Titantron, Maryse says that Jacob Novak is so totally in the lead, which he so totally isn’t… clearly, she needs better contacts.

Okay, so this is a Talk the Talk challenge, where the pros get to diss their opponent tonight. Novak/Saxton go first: Novak completely bombs, while Saxton gets massive cheers when he likens Novak’s plain white briefs as Huggies diapers. Awesome.

Second up is Conan/Titus. Conor bombs, and Titus doesn’t do much better. The crowd gives him the “win” for the pair, but it more of a win by default.

Third up is Darren/Lucky. Darren does a damn good threatening job, and Lucky does an admittedly damn good cheap heat bit of blathering. Lucky obviously gets the “loss” here but, from a pro wrestling standpoint, he definitely got the most reaction out of the crowd.

Fourth up is the trio of Saxton/Titus/Darren. Saxton bombs, Titus somehow manages to do even worse, and Darren just jokes around and is boring as hell. Darren wins again, and again by default. Even William Regal says no one really won it, and says that all six guys need to do much better. “That whole thing was sorry,” verbatim. I couldn’t agree more.

Segment 2 [Singles Match]: Titus O’Neil (w/ Hornswoggle) defeats Darren Young (w/ Chavo Guerrero) by pin. Decent match but nothing special. Darren was mostly on offense, so Horny decided to help out by running around to the other side of the ring and started chewing on Chavo’s ankle. This distracted Darren, who ate a one-handed spinebuster and took the pin. Very sweet finisher.

Segment 3: Yoshi Tatsu is in the back and runs into Lucky Cannon. Yoshi just bluntly says that Maryse is his friend, so lay off. Maryse comes along, apologizes to Lucky, and says she’s “not that kind of girl” to slap people in the face. So he hits on her, and of course she slaps him in the face. Yoshi starts laughing, and Maryse thinks he’s laughing at her, so she slaps him too and storms away. Lucky massages his check, says that that was funny, so Yoshi slaps him and walks away. That reminded me of no-weapons GoldenEye 007 multiplayer matches back on the Nintendo 64.

Segment 4: So, we’re supposed to have a tag match, but… Striker changes his mind and starts a dance contest between the teams. Ugh. Vladimir Kozlov and Conor O’Brian win, and everyone else (including us) loses.

Segment 5 [Singles Match]: Lucky Cannon (w/ Tyson Kidd) defeats Byron Saxton (w/ Yoshi Tatsu) by pin. Decent enough match but nothing special. Decent back-and-forth action, with Lucky doing the heel beatdown after Tyson distracted Saxton. Eventually, Lucky used the ring post to his advantage, then ended things with his wacky crucifix to powerbomb to sort-of FU move, and finished Byron off. Then as Tatsu came in to check on him, Lucky did it to him as well. Tyson is pleased, and we’re done here.

Final Thoughts: Okay, I’m not bothering with Pyro’s Picks this season unless they seem like they want to try, even though that’ll mean these NXT recaps are going to be sub-1000 words. Tonight’s episode had a ton of recap filler—which I’ll give a pass until we’re done with WrestleMania—and the matches were decent enough, I guess… but Darren and Lucky are the only ones showing personality, and no one is really amazing anyone with their in-ring talents. It’s not bad, it’s just not exactly entertaining. William Regal’s commentary and insights are the best parts of the show now.