Peter Kostka
From the NXT Arena at Full Sail University. Your commentators are Rich Brennan and Corey Graves.
Tonight: Two more Dusty Classic 1st round matches.
Carmella vs. Peyton Royce
Peyton Royce is of course the new name of former jobber Jessie. If this match showed me anything, it’s that Carmella is actually starting to show a lot of improvement. She’s had the charisma and character down, but here she showed some actual ring skill to go along with it. Sure, I’m not expecting her to rise to the level of a Sasha or Bayley right away, but this match (and, even more surprisingly, the Dana Brooke match later on) showed me that although the women’s division may not reach the heights it did over the past year for a while, it isn’t going to completely fall off the face of the Earth considering the talent that can still be developed.
Of course, if Eva Marie does become champion you can disregard the above and join me in a nice cyanide capsule. They have a pretty nice back and forth TV match until Carmella plants Royce with a Flatliner and hooks in her leg scissors for the submission.
Finn Balor and Samoa Joe prepare in the locker room. Joe makes sure Finn has his NXT title belt.
We take a look at highlights from Dusty Classic 1st round matches taped at NXT live events:
– Enzo and BIG CASS beat Sawyer Fulton and Angelo Dawkins. The bracket has them facing the winners of tonight’s Joe/Finn vs. Lucha Dragons contest in round 2.
– Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson beat The Drifter and Tucker Knight.
Is Nia Jax coming soon? Yes she is.
Tyler Breeze and Bull Dempsey vs. Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa (Dusty Classic 1st round match)
The lean, mean 301 pound machine Bull copies Tyler’s corner pose which absolutely sickens his partner. Tyler takes down Ciampa to show Bull how it’s done but Tommaso slaps the gorgeousness out of his mouth and Tyler stumbles to his corner for the tag. A “Bull is gorgeous” chant breaks out, which Dempsey appreciates. Tyler tries his luck again but Gargano spears him and hits a neckbreaker which has Tyler scurrying to the corner again. Bull no sells a crossbody, but Johnny cracks him with an enzuigiri and Bull is in trouble as we take a break.
Bull fights out of a sleeper and Gargano tags in, dropkicking Tyler off the apron to prevent Bull from making a tag. Bull slugs away, but bumps into a groggy Tyler on the apron which allows Gargano and Ciampa to combo roll Bull up for the pin. They will face Rhyno and Baron Corbin in round 2. Tyler beats on Bull for taking the loss even though Tyler got his ass kicked most of the match. This match seemed more to set up that feud instead of showcasing the new team as Gargano and Ciampa really didn’t do all that much.
The Lucha Dragons cut a promo about their match tonight. Sin Cara speaks Spanish and Kalisto translates.
Devin talks to Dana Brooke. Dana doesn’t like that Bayley is the Women’s champion and decides to try to change that. She isn’t going to just use her looks to get ahead and is disgusted that people think she will. She is completely focused on NXT. Actually a really strong promo from Dana.
Billie Kay vs. Dana Brooke
I said a few weeks ago that I wasn’t sure about Dana’s skills in the ring, but she got a fairly long match here and didn’t look bad at all. Like Carmella, she’s got a great character and confidence in pulling it off. Obviously the cheers and chants she gets from the Full Sail crowd are most likely ironic and fully tongue in cheek, but that is leagues better than the reaction Eva Marie gets. These fans seem to at least respect Dana a little bit. It’s almost like we’re seeing two sides of the same coin with Dana and Eva: Dana is NXT’s school of developing characters as she has been given plenty of time to develop and grow and try to form some sort of connection with the fans while Eva is the typical WWE thinking of “we’re just going to tell you she’s good even though the fans can plainly see she isn’t because we think our fans are stupid and will just go with it.” This is another decent TV match where Dana wins with her slam that really needs a name already.
Apollo Crews christens his fans the Apollo Nation and says the Nation is going to take over NXT. Well that’s a smart way to incorporate his old name into things.
Bayley superfan Izzy meets her hero at the Performance Center and gets a tour. Bayley is the best. She’s also back at Full Sail next week.
We now go to Providence, Rhode Island for our main event. Tom Phillps and Jimmy Uso take over on commentary.
The Lucha Dragons vs. Finn Balor and Samoa Joe (Dusty Classic 1st round match)
I haven’t heard much of Uso on commentary, but you have to respect that he seems to be having a LOT of fun out there with Phillips. Finn comes out sans paint but with a leather jacket that kind of looks weird on him. I guess I’m just used to seeing him in paint or just wearing one of his shirts to the ring. He seems to get a fairly good reaction though Joe definitely gets a bigger one. They do get a “this is awesome” chant right away probably because the crowd wasn’t expecting this match. Jimmy actually is a good choice for commentary here since he’s in a tag team and actually talks about tag chemistry which is why he favors the Dragons. Finn sends the Dragons to the outside and dives out onto them as we take a break.
Joe has control as we return. Tom points out that Joe and Finn trained together in LA and Jimmy says “You mean they do got that chemistry!?” like Tom just told him Santa wasn’t real. I already like this duo. Sin Cara hits a backbreaker on Finn to turn the tide and the Dragons work him over, including a nice monkey flip into a 450 splash combo. Finn hits the Pele on Cara and makes the hot tag to Joe, who completely LAYS WASTE to the Lucha Dragons, flattening Kalisto like a pancake with a running senton (that’s how you do it, Eva), but Cara manages a tornado DDT for 2. Joe puts him on top for the Muscle Buster, but Cara fights out. Joe slaps him around but Kalisto makes the blind tag and actually hits a nice looking hurricanrana for 2. Joe catches him on a charge and a Muscle Buster/Coup de Grace combo sends Joe and Finn to round 2. A tremendously fun match to set up Joe and Finn as favorites. Putting it in front of a bigger crowd actually made it seem like a bigger deal too. I am liking this move away from doing everything at Full Sail for this tournament.
OVERALL: Episodes like this is why I enjoy NXT. A nice breezy 50 or so minutes of fun wrestling, some character and feud development with characters I actually care about. When RAW has Orton vs. Sheamus for the 700th time this year, instead of bitching I’m always just going to change the channel and say to myself “Well, it’s almost Wednesday.”
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