Last week on NXT: Lorcan and Burch made quick work of Adrian Jaoude & Cezar Bononi, Shayna Baszler took too much joy in doling out punishment to Violet Payne, Lars Sullivan destroyed Raul Mendoza and Bianca Belair and Nikki Cross tore the house down in a match that ended in double countout.
Cold Open
A hype video for the champion vs. champion match tonight. United Kingdom champion Pete Dunne vs. North American champion Ricochet. Both belts are on the line
Dakota Kai & Deonna Purrazzo vs. Lacey Evans & Aliyah
Dakota Kai is out first, which reminds me. Apple Music still hasn’t put her theme song on their service yet. Very upsetting. Deonna makes her way out to an epic sounding string arrangement.
Aliyah is like the bizarro version of Dakota Kai, entrance song and all. Lacey Evans is NXT’s resident Liberty Bell.
Purrazzo and Evans start the match off for their teams. Some nice counter wrestling to start off the bout. Evans is able to get the better of Purrazzo and tags Aliyah in. Aliyah wrestles a bit like Carmella, which you can take that however you’d like.
Purrazzo and Dakota do some quick tags but to no avail. Aliyah is able to overpower Deonna and make a tag to Lacey Evans. Aliyah and Lacey cut the ring in half and are able to rip Purrazzo apart. Vicious moves and quick tags put Lacey and Aliyah in the drivers seat.
This beat down lasted a long time until Dakota came in on the hot tag. After laying in a few kicks on Aliyah, Dakota went for the pin without taking care of Lacey Evans, which came back to bite Kai during her pin attempt. Lacey was able to break up the pin, get tagged in and then punch Dakota square in the jaw to pick up the victory for her team. Lacey was dominate in her showing tonight.
Velveteen Dream is interviewed backstage about carrying the momentum gained from defeating EC3. Dream said he already carried the momentum by defeating Johnny Failure. Then Dream shuts down questions about Aleister Black’s attack.
A Snapchat video from the Street Profits where Bianca Belair questioned them. Montez Ford said that he cares about his “chains” because it is his culture. A symbol of the struggle to get success. He explained that that’s why he doesn’t consider his necklace “just chains”.
Recap of Bianca Belair and Nikki Crosses no contest. Bianca was interviewed last week after her match with Nikki. Belair says she will not back down. She is un-duh-feated.
Humberto Carrillo vs. Jaxson Ryker
Jaxson Ryker. Lol. What a name.
No idea who Humberto Carrillo is but he apparently was trained by Hector Garza and is 22 years old.
Jaxson Ryker comes out alone. Mauro calls him an Iraq war veteran. Percy Watson says that Ryker is the savage of the group named The Forgotten Sons. Nigel says Ryker is out here alone because The Forgotten Sons have so much confidence in him.
This isn’t so much of a squash as it is a dismantling of Humberto Carrillo. Ryker’s finisher is a slingshot powerbomb. Which he hit for the win.
Candace LeRae is being questioned by William Regal about Black’s attack. Candace names off a few things like “disregard of authority, trying to ruin someones life. I mean who do you think that sounds like?”. William says they already questioned Ciampa but Regal asked Candace what frame of mind Johnny was in. Candace said that Johnny asked her to stay in the locker room for a bit ad then they drove home together. Johnny Gargano is a prime suspect now because the triple threat title match was announced that night and Johnny’s hatred of Ciampa could have led Gargano to take out Black so the match could be one-on-one.
Video package of the build up to this Pete Dunne and Ricochet match. From Pete sticking up for Ricochet against the Undisputed Era, to a tag match they lost by miscommunication and finally the challenge of champion vs. champion.
Keith Lee gets a vignette about what Limitless is. It’s coming back from failure to prove that his drive is limitless. His determination is limitless. His journey in NXT is limitless. Bask in his glory.
Cut to a month ago when EC3 said Lars Sullivan attacked Aleister Black. Then 3 weeks ago when Lars Sullivan attacked EC3.
United Kingdom Championship Match
North American Championship Match
Champion vs. Champion
Pete Dunne (UK c) vs. Ricochet (NA c)
I gotta say, I think Pete Dunne has the strongest jaw in wrestling. Dude is a champion almost everywhere he goes and comes out to the ring with the belt clenched in his teeth. That is like 10 pounds AT LEAST hanging from his jaw multiple times a week. No one else is doing that kind of jaw work.
Dueling “One and Only/Bruiserweight” chants to start the match. Love that the wrestling starts off with some chain wrestling. My favorite wrestling. Dunne goes into some joint manipulation and wrist compression. Pete has now decided to work on the left fingers, wrist, elbow of Ricochet.
Ricochet tries to out wrestle and submission wrestle Pete but the finger damage seems to have an effect on Ricochet’s performance. That leads Ricochet to try some leg submissions that Dunne could easily transition into some submissions of his own. We are getting dueling chants with counter submission wrestling. This is fantastic.
The match breaks down to a strike battle. Like the submission war we just saw, there is plenty of countering. Both men are able to do every style of wrestling very well and are proving it to one another. Ricochet gets the advantage after a dive the outside. Ricochet goes for a headstand counter but Pete Dunne kicks Ricochet’s arm.
Pete done gets sadistic with some finger stretching and slow methodical submissions. Mauro says that Dunne must have a problem with pianists from how much he attacks fingers.
The story is Ricochet is fighting back after every attack laid on him, but Pete’s attacks are so severe and strategic that it is slowly weakening Ricochet. Ricochet is pulling out everything he has to maybe, just maybe get and opening to win the match before his body gives out. Pete Dunne is the better wrestler but Ricochet might have more fight, more heart to win this.
“Fight Forever/This is Awesome” chant from the crowd which is funny. Can’t even agree on what complimentary chant they do. We got to the point in the match where its high spots and near falls. Pete Dunne’s high spot is repeatedly stomp on Ricochet’s hand. Dunne hits a forearm counter to Ricochet’s jaw and hits an X-plex for a two count. The crowd is rabid with a unified “NXT” chant. This is some good shit.
The fight spills to the outside where Pete Dunne hits an X-plex on the apron. They go inside and Ricochet hits a poison rana for two. Mauro just yells “WHAT THE HELL?!?” because these two have us in the palm of their hands. An amazing sequence that seems to last for minutes but goes by in seconds happens that ends with some sort of handspring tilt-a-whirl DDT by Ricochet for two. A picture is worth 1,000 words but this is a performance that no words could describe.
After the next sequence that gets a near fall the crowd at Full Sail just stands up and applauds. The camera cuts to huge smiles and people mouthing “oh my God”. Ricochet goes for a 450 but Pete catches him in a triangle choke. Ricochet powers out with a powerbomb. Pete Dunne still has a hold of Ricochet’s fingers and legit has a finger submission on Ricochet that everyone is buying as a probably finish. Ricochet deadlifts Pete Dunne into a brainbuster and both men are motionless.
Both men crawl towards each other, nothing left to give. They go to throw punches when Undisputed Era runs in to end the match in a double DQ. What a heel move. The worst thing yo could do to an NXT crowd. War Raiders run out to run off Undisputed Era.
As Ricochet and Pete Dunne stand up each with their respective titles. The commentary goes silent. We hear applause and hollers from the crowd. The show goes off the air with both champions being showered in chants of “NXT”. That was the most fun I’ve had watching wrestling in a long time. Yellow ropes forever you guys.
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