Last week on NXT: Kassius Ohno debuted his new NXT Gatekeeper gimmick after defeating Kona Reeves in the finest match I’ve seen, The Street Profits picked up a win over the Forgotten Sons scooter gang, Kairi Sane debuted a new entrance where she finds the NXT Woman’s championship in a treasure chest, Shayna Baszler knocked over said treasure chest spilling all the gold coins and Johnny Gargano embraced his dark side only to have said dark side lose the match to Velveteen Dream in one of the best NXT proper television matches this year.
Cold Open:
Tomasso Ciampa is walking into the building and the camera man bumrushes Ciampa and asks “what are you doing at Full Sail tonight?” Ciampa does not reply and the show begins!
Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch vs. Adrian Jaoude & Cezar Bononi
Holy Shit does Cezar Bononi have an amazing look. He has a little curl bang ala Razor Ramon and on top of that Bononi has a Vincent Price mustache. He might have one of my favorite looks on NXT.
Jaoude and Bononi are a new team that share a birth country in Brazil. Not much else is known about them. This match is about Burch and Lorcan though. This beloved tag team formed after a heated rivalry between Danny and Oney. Then as a team they struggled to find a win for a while, caught on, had an amazing tag title opportunity and then one of them got injured. This is the comeback match to remind us that Oney and Burch mean business.
Jaoude is a known Aikido expert and uses those skills in the ring to gain an advantage over Danny Burch. Danny is able to get a quick hot tag and the Beantown Bad Boy Oney Lorcan grabs the face of Jaoude and slaps the shit out of him. Burch and Lorcan hit a double team implant DDT. It was a nice showcase match and a reminder that the NXT tag division is deep.
Sad news everyone. Ciampa has entrance music.. It used to be the hatred of the crowd that led Ciampa to the ring. I guess overtime the boos wouldn’t have sustained so giving Tomasso a song is the right call. It was just a little jarring.
Ciampa references the music. “That music is a personal message from the champ to each and everyone of you. That music is the most polite way I know how to say shut up.” Ciampa jumps right into a speil about how he is the one that the fans accuse as being Aleister Black’s attacker. “Think about it, when I want to confront someone, I do it in front of the audience.” Tomasso says he does things in public so that we the fans can worship the master at work. The crowd is behind Tomasso with claps and hollers. Again gonna say NXT is smart to give him music. Ciampa also says that the NXT championship is happy to be back in the main event. Because Tomasso is spitting the truth, the crowd is behind him way more than I thought.
Props to the Johnny Gargano kid in the front row holding up a homemade “Ciampa Sucks” sign the whole promo. Ciampa noticed it too and stole the kids sign… Heinous to the anus that Ciampa.
Violet Payne vs. Shayna Baszler
This is fitness trainer Violet Payne’s debut match. Against Shayna Baszler. lol. Shayna walks to the ring with a purpose and looks like she is ready to wreck house.
“Shayna’s gonna kill you” chant by Full Sail. The second the bell rings Shayna attacks Payne with a takedown, a ground and pound and some joint manipulation that looks like Baszler is breaking arms. What’s crazy about Baszler matches is the amount of gross devestating arm work she does, only for the victim to be able to USE their arm the rest of the match. This wasn’t even a match as much as a massacre. Shayna wins with a choke and then comes back after leaving the ring to strangle Violet Payne until her face is violet from pain…
The crowd applauds this and a “one more time” chant. This crowd is behind Ciampa and cheering this? Full Sail is heel as fuck.
Heavy Machinery cut a selfie promo at the crime scene where Black was attacked. As they were talking shit about Ciampa, Tomasso was walking by and called them out. Otis challenged Ciampa to “get it on” and Regal was also walking by. Regal made the match between those two for “another time.” Then Regal brought Ciampa to the general managers office. Otis yelled out “I’m comin”
Undisputed Era cuts one of their Undisputed Backstage Promo’s. This is a promo where they talk to each other about the goings on’s while standing in front of a curtain and lighting structure while the camera cuts a bunch.
Lars Sullivan vs. Raul Mendoza
Raul is NXT’s Barry Horowitz. A good name, a good hand and a good person to get defeated in a showcase match. This feels like a reminder episode, reminding us of rivalries and that certain superstars exist.
If you thought that Lars would destroy Raul as the blood thirsty crowd reminiscent of a crowd at the Roman Colosseum than you would be correct. The match wasn’t nearly as fast as Shayna’s match but the result is still the same.
Video recap of Pete Dunne and Ricochet losing to the Undisputed Era. Leading to a war of words between Dunne the U.K. champion and Ricochet the North American Champion. They will compete in a match next week in an NXT first champion vs. champion match. Both men get promo time and I can’t help but think either Ricochet needs a mouth piece or we have to sit, wait, watch and hope that Ricochet’s mic skills progress by leaps and bounds. Both belts will be on the line, making me think it will be a fishy finish.
The Scooter Gang has a video backstage and now I feel like shit. They are all forgotten veterans? Their gimmick is that they are at a destroyed trailer park and said they will never be forgotten again.. Need a little more from this team before I even know what they are about.
Deonna Purrazzo, Dakota Kai, Aliyah and Lacey Lane got into an argument in what appears to be a lobby of a hotel which leads to a match next week.
William Regal is questioning Kairi Sane about the Black Attack and then Kassius Ohno comes in with a Cesaro/Tyson Kidd shirt. Regal says he doesn’t need to talk to Ohno. Kassius is offended. Kairi had the alibi to help Kassius clear his name but Regal says that Ohno seemed a bit perturbed. So Kassius is in the running for being the attacker. He is angry about being an after thought. Ohno finishes the segment by telling Regal “whenever your shiny new toy gets here, you let me know. Bro.” Telling us that Matt Riddle will be here soon and has a feud waiting for him. That’s some exciting shit.
Nikki Cross vs. Bianca Belair
Bianca bounces herself to the ring with the crowd bopping along to the theme song. Montez Ford and Bianca Belair are the most charismatic couple in the universe. They both are oozing IT factor and are what I enjoy most about NXT.
Nikki Cross is on another level of chaos. The crowd loves both these women and Nikki seems to have embraced her character more than ever before. Nikki gets a chant before the match even starts because of her entrance. After the bell rings Bianca gets her own chants and the energy is palpable.
It’s weird to see make up on Nikki. She is wrestling as her character which is tremendous and Bianca is selling the terror as well as anyone could. The match is Bianca trying to wrestle and do wrestling moves while Nikki thinks they are “playing” adding a bit of comedy to this match. The beautiful thing about Cross is she can go from “playing” comedy style to an angry vicious style on the turn of a dime.
Bianca is able to military press Nikki Cross and we should all just go home cause the girl is strong as hell and is a future main roster star. Nikki kicks out because as impressive as a military press is, it doesn’t do much damage. Bianca was proud and showing off too which left her open for Nikki to attack.
Belair tries to escape but Nikki is too quick and too crafty. Cross traps Belair inbetween the ring and the apron. Bianca has to do something to fight back and Belair ends up using her long ass hair to whip Nikki. The match gets weirdly horny when Nikki smiles after being whipped like that. Both women fall on the metal entrance ramp when Bianca fights off a choke by slamming Nikki on the ramp. This is a double countout. As well it should be because these two girls can have a series of amazing matches and I’m all about a slow burn.
Just because the match is over doesn’t mean this fight is. Both women begin throwing blows and the referee’s run to ringside to separate these two. Nikki is able to fight through the referee security and take the fight to Bianca to the commentary table. Nikki loses her shit and runs off the top of the commentary table onto Bianca and the referee’s. Nikki is laying on the floor with the biggest smile on her face while the show goes off the air with Full Sail chanting “NXT.”
Usually the episodes after a Takeover are hard to invest in because it is a refresh on most of the storylines. Meaning NXT takes time to build their rivalries which makes the Takeover’s that much more special. This defied my expectations and was a top notch show. We had squashes, tag team feud building, a whodunnit storyline, feuds starting, title matches booked for next week and a hell of a main event. All in the span of an hour. Bravo NXT and I can’t wait for next week.
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