Peter Kostka
It’s week three from the CFE Arena in Orlando, Florida. Your commentators are Tom Phillips and BIRTHDAY BOY Corey Graves.
This week: BayMella reunites to take on Eva Marie and Nia Jax in our main event.
American Alpha vs. Blake and Murphy (w/Alexa Bliss)
Last week, these teams were in a match that was mostly Gable getting beat on by the heels, so this week they shake it up a bit as Gable completely schools the both of them on the mat, including a sweet looking tornado armdrag on Blake. The Alpha are in complete control as we take a break.
The domination continues with a double team northern lights suplex and Gable looks at Jordan like “I got these goofs” but B&M manage to get him confused with teamwork and Murphy LEVELS him with a clothesline to get control of the match. This leads to the typical “beat on Gable to get heat” segment of the match until Murphy misses a kneedrop and Gable makes the tag. Men are suplexed, straps are dropped and Grand Amplitude finishes Blake for the pin. At about 12 minutes it probably was way too long for what it accomplished, but NXT is really making Jordan and Gable look like the most dominant team on the roster right now. It’s not like the Ascension where they squash jobber teams week in and week out either; they are beating former tag champions and are doing it by being really fucking good at wrestling. You know, the whole point here. Obviously this is leading to a tag title match sometime soon (read: Dallas) and they have apparently been tearing houses down with Dash and Dawson on the road so I am really looking forward to that match.
We recap the double pin from last week and GM Regal announces that in two weeks Samoa Joe and Sami Zayn will face off one more time in a 2 out of 3 falls match. He also has signed another new talent who will be introduced next week.
The Drifter video package. Graves echoes everyone else’s thoughts: “Don’t know anything more about him.”
Apollo Crews vs. Christopher Girard
Girard is former PWG, Evolve and CZW wrestler Biff Busick. He definitely has a Cesaro look to him and they have a hard hitting start to the match and Girard bulldozes into him with an uppercut for 2. Unfortunately, the bulk of the rest of the match is chinlocks by Girard until Crews powers up and pancakes him down, making the comeback and taking advantage of Girard slipping on the apron (either a covered botch or a nice little touch) and hitting the toss powerbomb for the pin. Crews’ stock really seems to have plummeted since he came into NXT; when he debuted in Brooklyn, people were saying he’s on the fast track, but now if there is such a thing as Midcard Hell in NXT, Crews is firmly there. I don’t know if he’s just not adjusting to the WWE style or what.
We recap the women’s title match two weeks ago and all of the post-match developments to set up tonight’s main event. Carmella wants revenge for ruining the biggest night of her career and Bayley is well aware of Asuka’s intentions for her title. Do I sense a hint of fear in her voice? I do hope they run with the story of Bayley being the fighting champion going up against the remorseless bulldozer that is Asuka and Bayley knows this will be the absolute toughest challenge yet. Nia was dangerous, but she was green; Asuka is just as dangerous AND has more experience than even Bayley. That’s another match I can’t wait for.
Security video captures Enzo Amore being jumped in the parking lot of the Performance Center by Dash and Dawson. Big Cass comes to the rescue and the heels run off, leaving Enzo on the concrete. They really are pushing towards a big final confrontation between these teams.
Tommaso Ciampa vs. Bull Dempsey
I assume this is the last we see of Dempsey because he left NXT soon after these tapings. The match is pretty much a comedy match and Tommaso does a good job acting like he wants no part of this goof (probably because there’s a lot of truth to it). Tommaso taps him out with his bridging armbar. Bull was a decent comedy character, but really not much else and it didn’t look like he was going anywhere, so a parting of ways was probably for the best.
Joe is asked about Regal’s decision. He’s used to roadblocks being put in the way of what’s entitled to him, so he’s just going to have to make Sami suffer twice as much. Sami is asked the same and he is ready because he’s had eight months to be ready and it doesn’t matter if it’s 2 of 3, 4 of 7 or 5 of 8 falls because he wants to be the first two-time NXT champion. It just dawned on me that NONE of the NXT titles have had two-time champions and NXT has been around in it’s current form for about four years now. That’s kind of remarkable in this day and age and allows them to make someone trying to win a title for the second time into a big deal.
Bayley and Carmella vs. Nia Jax and Eva Marie
Corey is over the moon that he gets to see Eva on his birthday and shushes Tom when he tries to speak during her entrance. BayMella work over Eva to start and hit a double suplex sending Eva scurrying over to Nia for the tag. Nia powers Bayley around and tags Eva back in, but she just gets double teamed again and the besties share a moonwalk as we take a break.
Nia makes a blind tag and drops Carmella with a shoulderbreaker leading to Carmella playing the Gable (I’m trying to make that a thing tell your friends) for a while with Nia using restholds and Eva using weak kicks and other bad leg-based offense to keep control. Carmella avoids a charge and makes the hot tag to Bayley, who runs wild on Eva and hitting the Bayley to Belly, but Nia breaks up the pin and headbutts her. Carmella tags and hooks in her leg choke, but Nia breaks that up too, trucking Bayley when she comes back in and drags Eva to the corner for the tag. Three legdrops is good enough for Eva to slip back in for the pin. Well, since Bayley was the only truly competent wrestler out there (and I *like* Carmella), this was what it was. Like the opening tag match, this probably didn’t need 10 minutes to accomplish what it did.
We go backstage one more time as Regal is with Finn Balor. He notes that Finn is approaching the all-time record as NXT Champion so, unlike giving him a banner like Bo had, he books Finn against the current record holder next week…Neville. Finn looks forward to it.
OVERALL: In re-watching this show for the recap, I ended up skipping through a LOT of the in-ring stuff because, honestly, there wasn’t much to say. Every match felt like it was artificially extended to fill time which led to a lot of chinlocks and other restholds. We got a little bit of storyline development as the Dallas card is starting to come into focus a bit and set up what should be a packed episode next week and a big match two weeks from now, so I guess that’s something. You can definitely skip this week’s episode, though.
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