Its NXT Title Time! Kassius Ohno and Bobby Roode fighting for the championship. Which doesn’t mean the rest of the show is going to br thrown away due to this right? Right?! Anwways, let’s get right into the show.
First up was The Ealy brothers, the guys who were jobbed out last week, who took on The Authors of Pain to get payback on the beating that they took last week. In all honesty, the match did start off well. The Ealy’s kept the AOP separated by holding one of them back on their side, divide the ring and conquer the match. However, the AOP just dominated and one, two, three, the match is over. This was stupidity short, especially when we got a little more character from the Ealy Brothers, granted it wasn’t much. But you’ve got to make the AOP look strong I guess.
Ellering addressed The Revival, DIY came out and then proceeded mock Ellering, and tells them they’ll be able to defeat them in a fair championship rematch. The Revival then came out and refused to sit on the sideline in the tag division any longer. Law and order was finally restored once William Regal came out and announced that at NXT takeover Orlando, The Authors of Pain will have to take on The Revival and DIY in a Triple Threat Tag Team Elimination match. This actually sounds like it could be pretty good, could be an opportunity to put on a brilliant 5-star match so keep your eyes on this match up.
After a promo for the tag team Heavy Machinery, We got a video package for Asuka and Ember Moon’s NXT Women’s title match. Asuka is set to look dominate as they use her quotes like “Nobody is ready for Asuka ” and “There is no women’s revolution, there is only Asuka”, which then contrasts with Ember’s statement where she wants to finally be the one to take her down. Another opportunity to put on a stellar match with these two, so NXT Takeover: Orlando already seems like it’ll be worth the money.
With the second match of the night, we had Nikki Cross vs Macey Estralla. According to the commentary team, Macey is a former military police officer and former marine corps. So she’ll definitely not get totally steamrolled by Nikki Cross… Macey partially got steamrolled. Nikki controlled the match and was absolutely manic and decided to destroy Macey by giving her six swinging neck breakers… one after the other. I can understand what they are trying to do, Nikki will work a weakness in the body until she deems it worthy to stop. But 6?! I almost felt like the WWE Network had rewound the footage again to catch up the stream, but now that really happened. And it was over like that, I was severely disappointed. To try and fill out the time of the episode, Tye Dillinger and No Way Jose ran down attacked Sanity from behind. But sanity was able to handle the assault as they still had the numbers. It ended with Eric Young shouting to Dillinger “their blood is on your hands” and I can say that it worked for that particular storyline. Dillinger has had to have support in order to combat Sanity, but it’s causing them to get hurt in the process.
To try and fill out the time of the episode, Tye Dillinger and No Way Jose ran down attacked Sanity from behind. But sanity was able to handle the assault as they still had the numbers. It ended with Eric Young shouting to Dillinger “their blood is on your hands” and I can say that it worked for that particular storyline. Dillinger has had to have support in order to combat Sanity, but it’s causing them to get hurt in the process, the choices would be running out for him if he doesn’t beat them at one point or else Eric Young and his gang are going to demolish everyone that crosses them.
After another promo for an unknown wrestler that I’m curious to see (I deserve points if he’s called “The Sinner”). the show recapped Billie Kay’s “injury”. We then saw that Andrade had a confrontation with HoHo Lun in the locker room, Oney Lorcan told him to back off and it’s revealed that Oney and Andrade will have a match next week, as well as a six-man tag match with Tye Dillinger, No Way Jose, and Roderick Strong vs Sanity.
It’s finally Main event time with Kassius Ohno vs Bobby Roode for the NXT championship. Roode was caught off guard by Ohno as even though he’s not built like Vince McMahon’s House of Beefcakes, Kassius is faster than he looks. Roode struggled to get a foothold in the match, due to underestimating Kassius. Roode soon had momentum in his favour and showed no remorse, slowly bringing Kassius down little by little. Ohno tried to fight his way back but again was put back on the mat by roode. Both men exhaustingly have a back and forth between them, leaving us no idea who will win, even the crowd was split between both men as “Lets go OhNo/ Bobby Roode!” chants fill the room. Kassius looked like he might have won with his cyclone boot, but Roode kicked out. Roode hit a backstabber, but Ohno kicked out. Another back and forth with Ohno got closer and closer with every move and Roode was able to fight back to stay on top.
The match culminated with an attempted Glorious DDT which was reversed and Ohno hit a punch that knocked Roode out of the ring, leaving Ohno to drag him back into the ring, unfortunately, Roode kicked out. It all ended with a Glorious DDT and Bobby Roode retained his championship. So now it is confirmed that Bobby Roode will take on Shinsuke Nakamura at NXT takeover.
The majority of this episode was not worth watching if I’m being perfectly honest. The main event was entertaining but wasn’t enough to support the show. I get that this is all building to the PPV but if we aren’t getting hyped now for matches, and instead feel like we’re wasting our time. Then it’s not going to be surprising when people just avoid watching NXT. I don’t want that, you presumably don’t want that, so WWE please stop doing it.