From the top of the show, I would just like to say that I like Beth Phoenix’s promo about what occurred on RAW with Edge and Randy Orton. It’s the little hinges like this within a storyline that really drives home that NXT is the third brand. With how big Edge’s return is rightfully being touted, it would have been weird for Beth to ignore what happened. NXT no longer operates in this separate show continuum. She, herself is coming off a big weekend as well concerning the Royal Rumble. With that, let’s talk about this week:
Prinxe’s Aggressive Streak Continues: With a couple of weeks to go before NXT Takeover: Portland, the brief Finn Balor/Moustache Mountain feud is a little wrinkle to get there. I’m enjoying Finn’s more aggressive offense now that he’s a heel. Trent Seven is great as a babyface that works from underneath and got enough offense to make the match stand out. The right guy won as Balor sets his sights on Johnny Gargano.
I know that people are wanting Balor vs. Bate (myself included). Don’t do this match yet. This match has the potential to be a very special one. You don’t blow it off because you want to keep Gargano and Balor away from each other. Hell, you can even have Bate vs. Gargano down the line as well. Save it for later. We only have a couple of weeks.
Keith Lee Needs A Challenger: What a week and a half stint it’s been for Keith Lee. Not only does he win the NXT North American title, but he also had a Royal Rumble moment with Brock Lesnar. These past few months with the stars aligning couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person. What a difference a year makes.
As the saying goes, heavy is the head that wears the crown and Keith needs a challenger. With the North American title, you have a lot to choose from. You could potentially have a Roderick Strong rematch. There’s Bronson Reed. Killian Dane. Or you could have the two men that stepped up; Dominik Dijakovic and Damian Priest. Dijakovic and Priest are two big men with insane athleticism and they displayed that in their impromptu match.
It seemed like commentary was not ready to commit that this was a number one contender’s match for the North American Title. It was teased, but I think they did that because both men will eventually get their chances. The more things change, the more things stay the same. I’m not sure how Lee and Dijakovic are going to be able to top their previous singles matches. My money is on Priest getting involved and this turning into a triple threat of some sort for Portland.
This One’s For The Women: The NXT women’s division is insanely deep. Even with losing a mainstay like Shayna Baszler and having Io Shirai recover from injury, there are enough wrestlers to step up and make a name for themselves. Three matches, albeit short sprints are on this episode and tried to display a little bit of all the different flavors this division has.
- Shotzi Blackheart vs. Deonna Purrazzo: Shotzi’s rise is how you build somebody organically. Having her eliminate Shayna Baszler in the battle royale, then keeping her strong in defeat. Full Sail is fully behind her. She has a personality that stands out. I’m glad they let her keep her tank to further distinguish herself. As soon as she really hones in on what she does best in the ring, she’s a star. Deonna Purrazzo has been bouncing around Raw, Main Event, and now NXT. It’s her first on-air singles match via NXT since her stints on NXT UK back in the latter half of 2018. Purrazzo was able to show her technical ability a bit. This felt like a very brief secondary feud just to keep the momentum going for Shotzi. I’m not sure is Deonna is going to keep going back and forth on shows, but it would benefit her character to consistently be on NXT TV.
- Tegan Nox vs. Dakota Kai: This match was a little surprising given how built up this feud is. By no means do I feel this is the last of these two in the ring. With Tegan using the knee brace which was a nice callback, there has to be a stipulation match coming. Perhaps we’ll see this in Portland. It was a little weird to see Candace LeRae come and make the save for Tegan with the chair. It was also funny to hear the ref admonish Dakota and Tegan to bring the fight back to the ring when they brawled in the crowd. Maybe there’s something else to this Tegan/Candace alliance, but for now, we need a proper blowoff to this Tegan and Dakota feud.
- Chelsea Green vs. Kayden Carter:Â Hopefully, there’s an upcoming wrinkle here. As the prize of Robert Stone’s brand, I’m not sure if I would have had Chelsea Green lose so quickly. She has a similar case with Deonna that she’s been both featured on RAW and Main Event. Green was also in the Royal Rumble — although eliminated very quickly. You can do the thing where she was overconfident and Carter got the drop on her via roll-up pin. It was good to see Kayden get a W as her last appearances on NXT saw her lose to both Bianca Belair and Io Shirai. Where does Chelsea go from here? You can’t really refer to the wins on Main Event because that show seems like it’s in a multiverse of WWE programming. It happens, but it’s not in this particular timeline. If you want to start getting Chelsea and the Rob Stone brand over, she has to rack up some wins.
Goldie Is Coming Home With Me: It feels like forever ago that Tomasso Ciampa declared his intention to regain the NXT Heavyweight title that he never lost. We’ve had War Games and Worlds Collide, so this program got put to the side a little bit. Contract signing segments tend to be a little bit standard. Two guys come down to the ring. Two guys talk trash and refer to history. One guy either attacks the other guy after they sign or both guys fight after they both sign.
This segment was the right thing to do in order to get a little fire in this feud again. You needed to show how far Ciampa would go to get “his” belt back. You also needed to build off the vulnerability of the Undisputed Era with Roderick Strong losing the North American title and the UE collective losing to Imperium. Both things happened here. Ciampa not only putting his blood on the contract, but having that image of his blood on the belt. This man had potential career-ending neck surgery and was almost demon-like in his training to come back to NXT ahead of schedule. Bring on the title match.
The Broserweights Are the 2020 Dusty Classic Winners: For a team that was just put together only a couple of weeks ago, Matt Riddle and Pete Dunne have really gelled as far as being a team. With the promo towards the beginning of the show, Dunne eluded to getting to the finals before in 2018. There’s always that malaise looming around as he got stabbed in the back by Roderick Strong. With Riddle’s more chill demeanor, it makes as a funny comparison when both wrestlers are together. The serious gazed and the relaxed balances each other out.
I’m happy that the Young Grizzled Veterans at least got a forum to show everybody what they can do on the USA network. They are one of the best teams that WWE has and people may not get to see that with the start time of NXT UK every week. (Especially in the states). With the combination of Riddle and Dunne, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that they were going to win the whole thing.
This match got a lot of time as it should have and started to hit its stride during its second half. There was a nice touch during the home stretch where Riddle and Dunne hit the same moves in succession going to the finish. Like Aleister Black and Ricochet last year, the Broserweights continue the tradition of two singles competitors joining together to win the Dusty Rhodes Classic. We got some small pyro!
The ‘gold rush’ is ending for the Undisputed Era, especially with Roderick Strong last week. I feel that this continues in Portland concerning the tag team championship. Bobby Fish and Kyle O’ Reilly have been the gold standards as far as the NXT tag team division, but you don’t put the Broserweights together just to have them lose. As much as I love to see O’ Reilly with the air guitar, it’s time for the Undisputed Era to loosen their grip on NXT and set their sights elsewhere.
Final Thoughts: As NXT fans, we just had Worlds Collide and have a Takeover right after it. We are spoiled within this stretch and that’s a good thing! This show continues to strike the balance between showcasing newer talent and progressing previous storylines. For example; Bianca Belair’s video package displaying her record-setting Royal Rumble outing on Sunday. There’s no way that you can get everybody on TV every single week, but NXT does a good job of reminding you why wrestlers are important with the time allotted. With Worlds Collide out of the way, let’s hope for a strong build for Portland where now booking can focus on just building this one show.
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