It tries to, however you can bypass the 'Let's get you connected' screen. Since you'll probably need to manually install the wifi drivers, you can start that way with internet disabled.

If anybody needs the actual method: Shift + F10 at the Connection Screen, then in the command prompt, type: OOBE\BYPASSNRO

It'll restart and you'll have to go through a couple windows again (keyboard layout, language, etc.), but then you'll be set. One thing to remember, once you log in with your account and get the internet going (if you decide to), Onedrive will immediately start trying to sync and download everything. Literally the first thing I do is quit one drive and uninstall it so it won't!