It’s the semi-finals of the Dusty Rhodes Classic this week, I’m Scott Hammond and I’ll be running you through this week’s episode of NXT.

Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic Semifinal Match: Moustache Mountain (Trent Seven & Tyler Bate) vs The Forgotten Sons (Steve Cutler & Wesley Blake)

‘No Deal Brexit’, aka Moustache Mountain, was out first, clearly unaware of their countries implosion in Parliament the night before, and ready to give the UK something to cheer at least. The Forgotten Sons were out next to the sound of their horrific theme song that somehow gets worse every week. Bate and Seven are great throwback babyfaces. Tyler Bate and Wesley Blake started the match. Bate made an early tag to Trent Seven who cleared both Blake and Steve Cutler from the ring. Seven then hit chops to both Cutler and Blake before hitting a chop fake into a DDT on Cutler. Seven then worked that into a sit-down suplex before Cutler recovered and hit a chop block to begin working on the knee. Blake worked Seven’s knee with a spinning toe hold, followed by a figure-four leglock.

Seven then reversed the hold, before making the tag to Bate who came in and hit clotheslines on both Cutler and Blake. Bate hit a double uppercut in the corner, before going into an aeroplane spin on Cutler. Blake then got on the top rope but Bate caught him, and in an impressive feat of strength, performed a double aeroplane spin on both opponents. Bate then performed an exploder suplex on Blake to the outside, before throwing him back in and hitting a corkscrew moonsault for a two count. Seven and Bate then hit their double team finisher of the right hand into a dragon suplex but Ryker interfered on the outside by putting Blake’s foot on the bottom rope. Bate went to the outside and was taken out by Ryker behind the referee’s back. Ryker threw Bate back in, and Cutler and Blake hit the reverse DDT/foot stomp combination for the pinfall victory.

Winners: The Forgotten Sons (Blake & Cutler)

Backstage Matt Riddle was interviewed about why he interrupted the Velveteen Dream last week, but Adam Cole walked in and said that the North American title should be his, and they both agreed to a match against one another.

Number One Contenders Match for the NXT Women’s Championship: Io Shirai vs Bianca Belair

Shayna Baszler was already on commentary when we came back for this match. Bianca Belair is growing on me. She looked physically very strong in this match. Shirai started early with a handspring elbow, and the action very quickly moved the outside, where Belair hit an over the head powerbomb, and Shirai hit her head on the steel steps. Belair dragged Shirai into the ring and hit a standing moonsault for a two count. Baszler was doing great heel work on commentary but was being a bit harsh on both women in this match.

Shirai then countered Belair from a victory roll into a stomp. Shirai hit a springboard dropkick into the corner and followed up with double knees. Belair countered with a braid whip, but Shirai recovered and hit a top rope hurricanrana. Shirai went for a moonsault but Belair got her knees up. At that point, Shayna Baszler left the commentary position and pulled Shirai from the ring. Baszler then put Belair in a Kiribda clutch until she passed out. Kairi Sane then hit the ring but was caught in the Kiribuda clutch as well until she too passed out. Shirai was next for an early night’s sleep, and Baszler was left standing in the ring over her foes. I’ve said this before, but Baszler is a star and really looked strong here.

Baszler was walking out of the building backstage and was informed that the women’s title match at NXT Takeover: New York would now be a Fatal four-way match between her, Io Shirai, Kairi Sane and Bianca Belair. Basically 90% of the NXT women’s division.

Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic Semifinal: #DIY (Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa) vs Ricochet & Aleister Black

Ricochet and Black do not work as a team. They are simply too different. DIY wore their old school #DIY t-shirts, Black and Ciampa started the match. but both quickly tagged out, Gargano and Ricochet then worked a quick sequence, with Ricochet reversing a hurricanrana into a handspring, and then a head scissors into a dropkick to Gargano. Then a really fun sequence took place where both Black and Ricochet did fake dives and sat next to each other, waiting for #DIY to re-enter the match. Gargano gained a quick edge with a surprise slingshot DDT on Ricochet/Ciampa then tagged in and performed a hangman neckbreaker on Ricochet. Ricochet then tried to get back into the fight, fighting off both members of #DIY before hitting both men with the neckbreaker/DDT combination.

Black entered the match and performed a springboard moonsault on both Gargano and Ciampa, and then performed a brainbuster on Gargano for a two count. Ciampa then made a blind tag and both he and Gargano set Black up for the Meet Me In The Middle, but Ricochet broke it up and Black hit Ciampa with a knee strike, followed by Ricochet, hitting a flip to the outside, which led to Gargano catching him with a superkick. Ciampa then hit Black with a sick looking RKO on the ring apron whilst hanging Black on the top turnbuckle.

Gargano quickly hit a slingshot DDT for a two count. Gargano and Ciampa then put both Ricochet and Black in their respective submission holds, but Ricochet powered out and broke up both submissions. Gargano was then ejected from the ring and sold his knee-buckling that left him injured outside the ring. This led to Black hitting the Black Mass on Ciampa, followed by Ricochet hitting the 630 for the pinfall victory.

Winners: Aleister Black & Ricochet

After the match, Ciampa left the ring to tend to the injured Gargano. Candice LeRae came out from the back to help her husband. Both LeRae and Ciampa helped Gargano up to the stage before Ciampa attempted to attack Gargano and throw him into the video board like he did over a year ago to break up #DIY, but Gargano saw it coming, and threw Ciampa into the wall, followed by a superkick to end the show.

A very good episode of NXT again this week, it is just a shame that the final segment of the show will mean nothing now that Ciampa is injured. We will see where they go with this in the coming weeks.

All photos courtesy of WWE.com

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