Peter Kostka
From the NXT Arena at Full Sail University. Your commentators are Rich Brennan, Corey Graves and a returning Byron Saxton.
Tonight: The first 2nd round Dusty Classic matchup and Bayley returns to Full Sail as Women’s Champion.
We start with a weird segment. It is supposed to be a match between Tyler Breeze and Adam Rose, but Rose is now the “party pooper” and now seems to solely exist to say “poop” as much as possible. No more fun is allowed on his watch! Bull Dempsey interrupts and wants a piece of Tyler after what happened last week. The Bull-Fit thing at least seems to be getting over as he does Tyler’s corner pose to a pop. Breeze is a big meany to Bull and blames him for losing last week but he’s busy with a match right now. Bull wants Rose to leave but “poop poop poop” and a Rose slap leads Bull to beat him up instead. Tyler jumps Bull but scurries away before Bull can retaliate. The segment was effective at building to a Tyler/Bull match, but what the hell is Rose’s new gimmick? Did they let Vince come up with a character? “Goddamnit ‘poop’ is a funny word! It’ll get over!”
Backstage, Tyler accepts Bull’s challenge for a match next week but will only speak into the Selfie Stick.
“The Perfect 10” Tye Dillinger vs. Danny Birch
This is pretty much a showcase for Tye as he has definitely gotten more comfortable with his character. Birch gets a bit of offense but Tye fights back and hits his Codebreaker-like finisher for the pin. For how simple it is, he’s entertaining as hell in this gimmick, I’ll give him that.
Rhyno and Baron Corbin are asked about their opponents tonight and they state they aren’t looking past Gargano and Ciampa, they are looking through them.
Asuka (Kana) debuts next week. This division needs as much new blood as it can get, so I’m interested to see how she fits in.
Apollo Crews vs. Solomon Crowe
They do the handshake of respect to start, but Crowe quickly grows frustrated that Apollo seems to be answering everything he has, including an impressive as hell move where he pulls Crowe up from a sitting position on the mat and hits a suplex, so Crowe avoids a baseball slide by wrapping Apollo in the ring skirt like a hockey player pulling the jersey over his opponent’s head and beats on him to gain control. Crowe desperately needs a character that fits and I think he’s much more effective as a spitfire heel. Corey constantly comparing him to an internet troll doesn’t help things, though. He wears Apollo down with holds but Crews hits a jawbreaker off a sleeper attempt and comes back with his corner splash before hitting a jumping enzuigiri and the gorilla press/standing moonsault combo for the pin. This was one of those shockingly fun matches you get in NXT where guys just go to town for 6 minutes.
Gargano and Ciampa promise to move on in the tournament and prove that they have earned their spot in NXT.
Devin talks to Dana Brooke and Emma, who feel like they are being looked over among the champ returning and new blood coming in, so they decided to show the “newbies” who’s in charge. Poor Devin gets it from both sides as Dana remixes the head pat while Emma laughs at her.
An SUV pulls up to the arena and reveals Sasha Banks (to painfully canned crowd cheers).
Kyle Edwards runs down the first round of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Classic as we learn the semifinals AND finals will take place October 7th at Takeover. We look back at Samoa Joe and Finn Balor beating the Lucha Dragons from Providence last week and get clips of The Hype Bros beating Noah Kekoa and Alexander Wolfe and the Vaudevillains beating Blake and Murphy at NXT Live Events to finish round one. Round 2 is as follows:
– Samoa Joe and Finn Balor vs. Enzo Amore and BIG CASS
– The Vaudevillains vs. Dash and Dawson, which will take place during NXT’s Texas tour this weekend
– The Hype Bros vs. NXT’s Greatest Tag Team
And our next match tonight….
Rhyno and Baron Corbin vs. Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa (Dusty Classic 2nd Round match)
Rhyno and Ciampa start and just beat the ever-loving shit out of each other for the first few minutes of the match, a fantastic start. Ciampa levels him with a clothesline and tags Gargano and they do some nice double team offense on Rhyno before Gargano sidesteps a Corbin charge and dives out onto him on the outside. Rhyno gets the same treatment and Ciampa comes off the top with a twisting crossbody onto both heels. This is just a great start to this match. More tandem offense on Rhyno, but Ciampa can’t get lift on a German and Rhyno wipes him out with a clothesline before tagging Corbin who hits a spinning side slam as we take a break.
The heels continue to work over Ciampa as we return as things have slowed down. Rhyno puts him on top but Ciampa fights him off and hits a missile dropkick, making the hot tag to Gargano. He runs wild on Corbin with flying elbows and kicks before springboarding in with a DDT for 2. It breaks down and Rhyno goes for a Gore, but Gargano leapfrogs it and hits Corbin with a jumping enzuigiri for a close 2 before running right into an End of Days to send Rhyno and Corbin to Takeover. Definitely a better showcase for Gargano and Ciampa than last week and Rhyno and Corbin make a surprisingly good power heel team. Good stuff all around.
The Vaudevillains talk about their Dusty Classic 2nd round match and Gotch says winning the tournament as NXT Tag Champions would be extra gratifying. English: “Indubitably. That’s a great word, isn’t it?” They are interrupted by Alexa Bliss and her boys, who have exercised their title rematch clause for next week. Blake tries to say “indubitably”. It doesn’t go well. Gotch: “What a wench!”
Yep, Nia Jax is still coming soon.
Bayley enters the NXT Arena for the first time as champion and it’s about as awesome as you expect as she runs a lap in the crowd finding every little girl she can to hug and high fiving as many hands as possible before bringing Izzy into the ring to celebrate with her. Sure it’s kind of cheesy but I don’t care a bit. Bayley is the best pure babyface the WWE has produced in a *long* time.
Bayley vs. Sarah Dobson (non-title)
Dobson takes control early and hits a cartwheel into a double knee drop for 2. She wraps Bayley into a really impressive looking guillotine choke but Bayley powers her up and rams her into the corner to break the hold before she makes the comeback and finishes her with the Bayley to Belly.
Post-match, Bayley grabs a mic, but Sasha Banks comes down to the ring before she can get the “Holy moly” out. Sasha isn’t here to ridicule Bayley because she earned Sasha’s respect in Brooklyn. Banks gets emotional as she talks about how all she’s heard was how she and Bayley tore the house down and had the match of the year, which is fine for Bayley and the fans, but not her. “I didn’t come here to put on good matches and steal the show. I came here to be the best.” Bayley was great for three seconds on one night, but she’s still not Sasha and she has a point to prove. Bayley is fine with a rematch any time, but Sasha wants to prove she’s the best and doesn’t want just a rematch but to send a message. Bayley proposes a 2 out of 3 falls match, but Sasha wants to beat her “again and again and again and again”. The crowd immediately begins chanting “Iron Woman” as GM Regal walks out to the ramp. He is almost giddy as he announces that at Takeover, in the MAIN EVENT, it will be Sasha vs. Bayley for the title….in a 30-minute Iron (Wo)man match. The crowd understandably loses their shit at the announcement as Sasha and Bayley shake hands. What an absolutely perfect way to set up that match. This shit is not that hard to book; you have two competitors that want to find out who is the best, so you put them together to find out. Why the main shows haven’t figured this out and thus make their jobs harder continues to escape me. How far these two have come in even a YEAR is a testament to them and everyone behind them.
OVERALL: Even though they’ve had a very short time to build it compared to the usual few months they have, the October 7th Takeover actually has shaped up to be a pretty good show. I’m assuming/predicting we’ll see some kind of combination of Joe/Balor, Gable/Jordan the Vaudevillains and Rhyno and Corbin to decide the tournament and I don’t know if Sasha and Bayley can reach the emotional heights that their Brooklyn match did, but I am damn excited to watch them try. Throw in maybe Asuka kicking Dana’s and/or Emma’s head off and maybe another match and that’s a solid as hell card.
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