Peter Kostka
From the NXT Arena at Full Sail University. Your commentators are Rich Brennan and Corey Graves.
We start off with Finn Balor easily taking care of Tye Dillinger. Tyler Breeze appears on the video wall to call Finn the “Flavor of the Month” and decides it’s time to show Finn who truly dominates NXT. Well, that should be a GREAT match.
Dana Brooke cuts a promo. It’s as generic as you think it would be. She’s also condescending to poor Devin Taylor. I think you should have a few more matches under your belt until you can be a jerk to the backstage interviewer.
Devin interviews Kevin Owens, who feels a bit of a draft and can’t focus on the questions. He admits Alex Riley gave him a good fight a few weeks ago, but Owens won that match and the same will happen tonight. He hopes Riley will give up his grudge after this. He is also condescending to Devin. My only guess is that this leads to Devin Taylor completely snapping and telepathically dropping one of those LED boards on Bull Dempsey so he can get a gimmick change. Dark Devin could be Women’s champion!
Bayley vs. Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte (#1 contender’s match)
Apparently Becky called Corey a “hipster” on Twitter. It almost caused him to spill his craft beer! I love this man. The fact that he was on a flight to Portland has NO BEARING on anything. The faces take out Becky early and Charlotte gets the upper hand on Bayley, throwing her around with the figure-four headlock. Becky rolls back in and suplexes Charlotte, taking over on the Bayley beating as we take a break.
Becky works over Bayley’s leg as they plug the newly announced live events. That Albany show is close enough to be tempting. Bayley tries to come back, but Becky avoids an elbow and wraps her up in a leg submission, but in doing so Becky leaves herself wide open for Charlotte to hit a Natural Selection, but Bayley breaks up the pin. Fantastic sequence there. Charlotte sets Bayley up on top, but Becky yanks Charlotte off and sets up Bayley for a superplex herself. Charlotte pulls Becky off in a powerbomb position and Bayley adds a top rope back elbow garnish. Bayley hits a throw on Charlotte and the Bayley to Belly on Becky, but Charlotte breaks up the pin and NOW….IT’S TIME TO GO TO NEW SCHOOL. She hooks in the figure-four, pulling Bayley back to the center and turning it into the bridging Figure-Eight (“It’s twice as good as her daddy’s!”), but Becky crawls over and drapes an arm on Bayley while her shoulders are down and Charlotte can’t see her while bridging to get the three! Fantastic finish. Becky steals the match without doing a bit of cheating and outsmarting everyone. Plus, we get a fresh matchup for the title. I’m thinking Charlotte doesn’t have much left to do in NXT but I REALLY don’t want her on the main roster unless she’s used as Lady Lesnar, just steamrolling the division until Paige comes back and we get some good matches with characters you can actually care about. I also hope Bayley gets another title shot soon because her stuff with Emma is OK, but the fans are DYING to see her win the title.
Hideo Itami sends CJ Parker out to the organic pasture (I assume this is it since this is the last of the tapings) with the Shotgun Kick. This bit of tapings is really weird since it’s from like early March and they had the Columbus show and the WrestleMania episode mixed in. You’d think they would be giving Hideo a bit more attention after half the Mania episode was focused on him. I guess the next set of tapings will answer that.
Becky and Sasha Banks exchange words in the locker room. Sasha doesn’t think Becky has a chance against her.
So I guess Team BAE is no more? 🙁
Rhyno squashes a dude. You can tell this is the last bit of tapings when they just put some squashes out there.
The Dubstep Cowboys “serenade” Carmella but Enzo and BIG CASS run them off. Cass sarcastically compares them to Sinatra and Enzo is so APPALLED that he forces Cass to apologize to the Sinatra estate. They notice she is wearing the jewelry that the Cowboys gave her (“Cracker Jack piece of CRAP!”) and suddenly an episode of Jersey Shore breaks out. Enzo: “Why would I get you gifts? I got you a JOB!”
Alex Riley vs. Kevin Owens (non-title)
Owens tries his bully tactics to start but Riley stands up for himself and fires away, sending Owens packing with a dropkick. Owens stalls and goads Riley into coming after him, avoiding a baseball slide and throwing Riley onto the ramp as we take a break.
Owens bullies Riley around as the rest of the match plays out similarly to the Columbus match with Riley trying to make comebacks but Owens cutting him off every time until he’s had enough of things and finishes Riley with the popup powerbomb. He wants to add the apron powerbomb to Riley’s tab but Sami Zayn runs down for the save, touching off a brawl that has officials and wrestlers coming down to break it up. Sami rolls into the ring as a dozen guys hold back Owens on the floor, so Sami goes to the top and dives off onto all of them! That image will be in the opening video next week. Owens retreats to the back as Zayn stands tall. Please announce the next live show and the rematch so I can get as excited as I was for Zayn/Neville last year.
OVERALL: A good episode of NXT typically includes plenty of angle and character progression and at least one good match. This week’s may have been a little heavy on the squashes and a couple of characters seem to be spinning their wheels a little (Bayley and Itami), but they’ve set up at least three potential live show matches that I would love to see.
Until next week….
