Welcome to another edition of This Week on NXT. Featured in this week’s episode was the confrontation between Samoa Joe and Shinsuke in Osaka, Japan. And you guys totally didn’t see who won the match on twitter because you’re all good little boys and girls, right? Right. Let’s get to the start of the episode.
We opened with DIY’s Tommaso Ciampa & Johnny Gargano celebrating their tag team victory. It was abruptly interrupted by Paul Ellering & the Authors of Pain saying DIY’s reign will be short lived. They were then interrupted by The Revival, calling back to their involvement in the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic when they interfered to give the AOP the win. Confronted by the AOP the revival stood their ground but then pushed away like nothing. Paul Ellering stated “The next chapter will be written by the AOP, and it shall read NXT tag team champions”. So are The Revival getting their rematch clause? Or have the AOP just stolen that spot? Either way a match between AOP and DIY could be pretty entertaining so I’m looking forward to that.
A video package played out advertising former NXT superstar, Percy Watson, as a new edition on the commentary panel. I didn’t really see an issue just having Tom Phillips and Corey Graves but we’ll see how he performs. As long as there’s more describing the action going on in the ring rather than “Oh MY”.
A Tag Team match commenced with No Way Jose & Rich Swann vs Eric Young & Alexander Wolfe (Sanity) . Three members of sanity turned up to the ring, leaving the question as to where the fourth member is? Eric Young discarded a jacket belonging to Sawyer Fulton suggesting he’s been kicked out the group. What lead him to be kicked out of Sanity? Maybe he was just so “developed” as a character that the group couldn’t handle him and had to kick him out so they could look better.
The match started with Jose and Swann taking control. Wolfe took a battering until he countered a Hurracanrana and tagged Eric Young in who then set out to dominate. Swann was constantly denied the tag, being held back by Young, Young tagged in Wolfe who proceeded to do that weird dancing in the ring (they’re so mad guys, one time they drank milk straight from the carton! Bonkers they are). Jose managed to get the hot tag and almost had him down with a TKO but was denied by Wolfe. Swann managed to get a good springboard flip to the outside as the fight spilled out onto the outside between Jose and Young. Jose was suddenly taken out by… BIG DAMO! Sorry, I had to regain composure but yes, Big Damo, took out Jose for Sanity and Young got the pin. Damo then proceeded to throw down Fulton’s jacket (give it the double stamp to make sure it’s dead after all) leaving the audience to wonder if he’ll be a new member of Sanity, or if he just really hates jackets. A fun match with interesting story line possibilities for Sanity and for this rivalry with Swan and Jose.
William Regal announced that The Revival will take on DIY for the tag team titles on 11th Jan, and the winner will go on to face the AOP at NXT Takeover: San Antonio. Tye Dillinger came in to talk to Regal about his place at NXT. Regal announced a new tournament for next week with 4 singles matches and the winners of those matches will go on to compete in a fatal four-way elimination match. The winner will be a number one contender for the NXT title. So if this is a push for the Tye then I’m all for this as he needs something positive right now to cover his losses. We also saw him look longingly into his knuckle duster. And no, that’s not a euphemism.
A backstage segment saw Sanity rush down the hall when Nikki Cross spotted the NXT women’s championship and developed an evil smile on her face. Someone better pick up that phone because I CALLED IT! Asuka then slid her championship away and they both just looked at each other, almost like they are excited for some real competition. All I have to say is “yes, yes, yes”. I’m all for this, 100%
More women’s division action witnessed Ember “Don’t worry, I’m coming for the title soon” Moon vs Kimber Lee. Another squash match for Ember to show how dominant she is. Lee showed us some interesting technical ability and strength but ultimately succumbed to her stunner.
The tournament set for next week is set up and the matches were revealed: Tye Dillinger vs Eric Young; Elias Samson vs Rodrick Strong; Oney Lorcan vs Bobby Roode; and Andrade “Cien” Almas vs No Way Jose. My personal prediction for this will be that the final will be Dillinger vs Roode vs Strong vs Almas and that Tye will become the number one contender. Being beat down and then fighting his way back up makes a good story arch for him.
Lastly was the NXT title match between Samoa Joe vs Shinsuke Nakamura… again. How many more of these are we going to get before one of them gets drafted to the main roster? Not that I’m complaining about these guys, I love them. Just feels like we need some variety. I liked that the match-up put them as equals who are constantly trying to get one up over the other. Felt like this was the ultimate conflict between them, however, it felt a little short and the match we had previously at Takover felt bigger. If it was a little longer then I think it’d be great but it was good to show how far they’re going to become champion as they both looked exhausted. Joe even went for steel steps just like in Toronto but Nakamura reversed and kicked Joe into the steps. It went back and forth until Nakamura hit the Kinshasa for the win.
Overall it was a decent episode of NXT and maybe finally we can move past the oversaturation of Nakamura vs Joe stuff…
Oh yeah they’re scheduled to fight next week in Melbourne, for the title. In a cage match… This is going to go on forever isn’t it?