• WWE decided to shake things up a bit on Tuesday night's episode of NXT, and it made for an entertaining show. NXT opened with the eight rookies on stage (in the order of their ranking in the pro's poll) and a few of them were interviewed by Matt Striker. Another change in the format was the introduction of a physical challenge – in this instance, the challenge was carrying a 160-pound keg around the outside of the ring, with the object being to do it in the fastest time. I hope they do more of these. One thing that I didn't care for was the absence of the eight pros. No explanation was given as to why they weren't there, which was strange.
• Heath Slater won the challenge, and as a "reward" he got to wrestle Kane. The outcome of the match was never in doubt, but Slater did make a good accounting of himself.
• The fans are reacting more to Daniel Bryan and David "A-List" Otunga than the other rookies. To a lesser degree, Justin Gabriel, Slater and Wade Barrett are also getting a reaction. No one seems to care about Darren Young, Skip Sheffield and Michael Tarver, however.
• It was a tough night for Tarver. During the opening segment, he talked about how he was going to turn things around after his seventh-place showing in the pro's poll. Then he did the keg-carrying challenge and was the only one of the competitors to drop the keg, which resulted in an automatic disqualification. Later, he lost to Gabriel to drop his record to 0-5.
• It also was a tough night for Bryan. He came in next-to-last in the challenge, and then lost clean to Young to drop his record to 0-7. I didn't have any problems with Bryan's previous losses because he was being established as a likable underdog and in most of his defeats he seemed to be a victim of circumstances. It's hard to justify this result, however.
• Bryan did get in a good line, though. When asked by Striker if he felt he deserved to be No. 1 in the poll, Bryan replied, "Does Michael Cole deserve to take Jim Ross' place as an announcer? No." I wonder if that line was scripted or ad-libbed.
• Cole and Josh Matthews are growing on me as an announce team. Bickering announcers can either be funny or annoying, and I think they're the former.
• The Barrett-Otunga match wasn't bad. Otunga turned in his best in-ring performance so far.
• When Otunga abandoned tag-team partner John Cena during a WWE unified tag team title match against The Miz and The Big Show on Raw Monday night, I raised the question of why Otunga would throw away a chance to be a co-holder of the title with Cena. He addressed the question, saying that he doesn't share the spotlight with anyone, and that it was smart to save the title for The Miz, who is one of the pros that has a vote. I'll buy that.
• Sheffield seems to have turned heel. I don't think it's going to matter.