Peter Kostka
From the NXT Arena at Full Sail University. Your commentators are Rich Brennan, Corey Graves and Byron Saxton.
Baron Corbin vs. “The Perfect 10 Tye Dillinger”
The match is pretty much a showcase for Corbin as Dillinger gets a little bit of offense but Corbin destroys him while drinking in the boos from the Full Sail crowd. Now that he’s actually found some personality and has gotten more expressive in the ring Corbin has become a really entertaining part of the show for me. Dillinger dives off the top but Corbin catches him and, impressively, spins him right around into the End of Days for the pin.
Apollo Crews will team with Finn Balor to face Corbin and Samoa Joe next week. Apollo says that next week he and Finn will get one step closer to getting rid of Corbin and Joe and finding out who the man is in NXT.
Tonight: Samoa Joe vs. Tommaso Ciampa and Nia Jax faces Blue Pants (Corey is hilariously APPALLED that Blue Pants is back).
Tommaso Ciampa cuts an honestly really good promo about how he has nothing to lose in his match against Joe tonight and knows nobody is giving him a chance, but he’s gonna beat Joe tonight and “everything changes”. It’s refreshing to hear these people that aren’t caught in the WWE system yet cutting promos that don’t sound scripted and forced.
Nia Jax vs. Blue Pants
They got rid of the Price is Right theme and now she has a theme that sounds like Billie Joe Armstrong scatting. Nia, of course, destroys her, swinging her around the ring and hitting a gutbuster before dropping the leg for the win. She REALLY needs a new finisher. It just isn’t that impressive looking.
Tom Phillips has a sit down interview with Dash and Dawson. They aren’t ashamed of their actions because it has gotten them the Tag Titles. They dismiss Cass and Enzo as the “catchphrase kings” and say that they can talk, but can’t back it up. Tom informs them that Cass and Enzo are getting a tag title shot at Takeover: London and Dash and Dawson (pretty justifiably honestly) question why they are getting a shot when they haven’t earned it. Dawson (who is just AWESOME in this segment) tells Cass that he has another knee to destroy and the flight back from London won’t be pleasant with a broken leg and his “carry-on” Enzo stuffed into the overhead bin. Give Dawson more mic time, he’s great. I wonder where this leaves Jordan and Gable for Takeover; they’ve been built up pretty big lately themselves and I was expecting some sort of multi-team title match.
Adam Rose vs. James Storm
Rose doesn’t use the word “poop” once in this segment (thank God), but he does cut his music short and walks out to silence. Third squash of the show as Storm makes pretty quick work of Rose and hits the Last Call superkick for the pin.
The Vaudevillains say they will win their match against NXT’s Greatest Tag Team tonight….but Jordan and Gable come in to disagree. “We’re really good” “Some would say great”. Gable says the fans are the real winners in their match tonight and says it’s getting harder to leave Full Sail. He makes a TERRIBLE joke about there being something in the water and oh my God Jordan’s sour face here absolutely slayed me. He has found his calling as Chad Gable’s straight man and is grabbing that shit with both hands. They are Ready….Willing….and Gable tonight.
We recap Sami Zayn’s NXT title victory last year at Takeover: REvolution. Man, that seems a lot longer than a year ago. The pop Sami will get on his return will be epic.
The Vaudevillains vs. NXT’s Greatest Tag Team
Gable and Gotch roll around to start and I would LOVE to see those two in a singles match sometime. Gable is so fluid in the ring it is ridiculous. Gotch escapes a Jordan suplex and tags English, who gets schooled on the mat by Jordan. English gets a rollup and a few Japanese arm drags, but Jordan takes his knee out with a dragon screw and tags Gable for some knee work, but English sends him to the outside on a charge with Gable taking a pretty scary bump. Take it easy on that stuff, dude. The Vaudevillains work him over briefly until Gable escapes with a judo throw and makes the hot tag. Jordan runs through the Vaudevillains and Grand Amplitude finishes Gotch. Jordan and Gable ask for a chivalrous handshake after the match, but the Vaudevillains simply walk off. I guess the chivalrous routine is over. I really hope Jordan and Gable have SOMETHING at Takeover.
Emma and Dana Brooke talk about their attack on Asuka last week and Dana gets so worked up about smacking Asuka around Emma has to calm her down. Emma doesn’t even want to talk about what she’ll do to Asuka the next time Emma gets her hands on her.
The Drifter Elias Sampson sings another morose song.
Emma vs. Liv Morgan
Liv is the new name for Marley nee Gionna Daddio. Seriously, why even bother coming up with a name for her when her real name is RIGHT THERE? Another squash here, but Emma looks more and more vicious by the week and is really coming into her own as a heel. Morgan looks ok, but she’s still pretty green. Emma hits a butterfly suplex and the curbstomp sets up the Emma Lock for the tap. Suddenly we hear a heavy bag being worked over and the Tron shows Asuka throwing kicks and strikes. She peeks around and tells Emma she’ll see her in London. She of course looks pants-wettingly scary as she does so. The crowd taunts Emma with a “Asuka’s gonna kill you!” chant.
Bayley is asked about Nia Jax’s attack last week and her title aspirations. She acknowledges that she’s never been in the ring with someone the size of Jax, but she does not back down from a challenge. Nia walks up and stares at the title before giving Bayley a smile and walking off. The interviewer then recites the worst bit of scripted crap I’ve heard in a while when he says “Bayley, it seems as if she just asked.” That’s just horrible. Bayley reiterates that she won’t back down before Nia suddenly grabs her and tosses her through a door. I have to give them credit that they are building up Nia’s dangerousness quite well and the story of how Bayley is going to beat someone that size will be an interesting one to tell. I don’t know how Nia will do in a longer match since we’ve only seen squashes so far, but I am interested to find out.
Tommaso Ciampa vs. Samoa Joe
God bless Tommaso Ciampa. God bless him for taking an absolute shitkicking in this match to get Joe over as a scary as hell monster. Seriously, this was a stiff as hell match as both guys traded slaps, kicks and chops that had the crowd gasping. They start off slow but Joe BLASTS him with a forearm and then it is ON as they trade slaps and Ciampa works the arm. Ciampa slaps him some more and hits an enzigiri, escaping a Samoan drop attempt and turning it into a guillotine and then a kimura, but Joe runs him into the corner and KICKS HIS HEAD OFF. This was no “slap your thigh to make a loud noise” kick either. This was a “I hope he goes through concussion protocol after this match” kick. Joe then VIOLENTLY snaps off a powerslam and facewashes him in the corner. Tommaso avoids a running kick and charges, but Joe just dumps him like the trash and mercifully finishes him with the Muscle Buster and Coquina Clutch. Again, thank you Tommaso Ciampa for going through that to make Samoa Joe look like the most dangerous man in the world. You won’t see too many ultra-physical matches like this in NXT.
OVERALL: Perhaps this was a little squash heavy as really none of the matches tonight were what you would call “competitive”, BUT they have a major show coming up and these matches (for the most part) featured people that are on that card so it makes sense to give them emphatic wins to get over that they are important. That’s another thing that NXT does better than main roster WWE: you can pretty easily understand who are the important characters on this show and you feel like what they are doing actually matters so you actually want to root for someone like Bayley or boo people like Emma. It’s not like the Amorphous Blob of Midcarders that WWE now has to suddenly try (and are failing to do so far) to make you care about to utter silence and apathy from the crowd.
See you next week for the Takeover go-home show. Also, with the year coming to a close I am starting to pull together my Top 10 NXT Matches of 2015 so look for that sometime after Christmas.
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