Hi, and welcome to NXT. So I haven’t really spoken about those spooky vignettes NXT keeps airing. Using the same footage they’ve used for the Wyatts, SAnitY, The Ascension, The Crow Sting, Solomon Crowe, Sheryl Crow, Sting, Shaggy and a crow. Anyway, just wanted to let you know, I’ve seen them. Many people seem to think it’s Killer Kross, who, beyond his Bloodsport match, I don’t know anything about because I gave up on Lucha Underground shortly before he turned up. This week’s NXT comes to you from the Performance Center because of Coronavirus. Sadly, they invited an audience. Let’s find out what happened.

The Undercard

NXT TakeOver: Tampa Women’s Championship Number One Contender’s Ladder Match Qualifier: Mia Yim def. Dakota Kai w/ Raquel Gonzalez // Pinfall (Eat Defeat facewash drop knee) The odd decision to have Dakota Kai lose this early into her partnership with Gonzalez aside, this was OK but never that exciting with far too much of Kai working underneath considering she’s meant to be the wong’un. After the match, Gonzalez dropped Yim with a powerbomb.

KUSHIDA def. Raul Mendoza // Submission (Hoverboard Lock avalanche kimura) // Solid stuff and, hopefully, a set up for us getting KUSHIDA vs Jordan Devlin sooner rather than later.

NXT TakeOver: Tampa Women’s Championship Number One Contender’s Ladder Match Qualifier: Tegan Nox def. Deonna Purazzo // Pinfall (Shiniest Wizard)  SQUASH! Blink and you’ll miss it stuff

Promos & Packages

We got some more spooky vignettes.

Tyler Breeze was interviewed earlier in the day. The interview was interrupted by Austin Theory who talked about how he is a big fan of Tyler and has been since high school, Breeze retorted by calling him a ‘flash in the pan.’ I can’t wait to not give a sh*t about this match.

Rhea Ripley came face-to-face with Charlotte for the first time since Monday. Charlotte getting a chant of ‘go back to RAW’ might be the only chant from the PC crowd to work. Anyway they said some more things and then they fought for a bit but to be honest, I zoned out a bit.

Finn Balor spoke about WALTER and analysing the weaknesses in his game. The good news for me is it seems he’s heading to NXT UK for a bit so he’s not my problem anymore, YAY!

Raul Mendoza was kidnapped in the car park by Lucha-masked, black-suited men. They looked a bit like the Demons from the Spiderman game so expect this to lead to the big debut of Mister Negative.

Before the main event, Velveteen Dream turned up to say that he didn’t care about Roddy, Marina or their child, he just wanted to get close enough to Adam Cole and the NXT Championship. Cole says he doesn’t deserve his lovely title and next week there’ll be a celebration of him being the longest-running NXT Champion.

Tommaso Ciampa knew why Johnny Gargano did what he did but he wants to hear him say it. Gargano appeared on the screen refusing to say why but instead wanting to talk about why we all hated Ciampa now he’s back, have immediately accepted him as a good dude even though he’s done nothing to redeem himself which is, frankly, a good point. Ciampa, bored of listening to this went and beat up Johnny all around the Performance Center, they got put through windows, smashed mirrors, threw bins and generally caused all sorts of mayhem. It ended when they fought conveniently up to a balcony above the announce table and Ciampa air raid crashed him through it. This was both hilarious and also punishingly long.

NXT North American Championship: Keith Lee (c) vs Cameron Grimes

I genuinely loved their last singles match, which was for the PWG championship and this had a lot of callbacks to it. Grimes is surprisingly adept at convincingly chopping down a bigger opponent, especially useful is that his Cave-In running double stomp finish can be performed on literally anyone, even a crow. The interesting thing about the storytelling was how Lee came off as something of a bully, working over his smaller opponents, especially in light of the post-match antics where Damian Priest attacked Lee with a truncheon, having been chased off by Dominik Dijakovic, Lee hit big Dom with a Spirit Bomb. If this is leading to a fatal four-way for the title, I’m excited to see how it goes as Lee has now put on belters with at least two of the three other men. Lee won with a Big Bang Catastrophe leaping powerslam. This was just good, solid stuff that didn’t outstay its welcome.

Winner: Keith Lee

NXT Tag-Team Championship: The Undisputed Era (Kyle O’Reilly & Bobby Fish) w/ Adam Cole & Roderick Strong vs Broserweights (Matt Riddle & Pete Dunne) (c)

This was decent stuff that kind of outstayed its welcome. If you want to know more of my thoughts on this, look back at literally any other review of any one of these two teams matches from the last six months. I don’t feel like anyone here really put any effort into this match so I’m taking that spirit and applying it to my review. The Broserweights retained off a double team Bro to Sleep fireman’s throw into a double knee. Watch it, if you want. If you don’t, it won’t change your life.

Winner: Broserweights

After a fantastic opening, the episode settled into a solid, if unspectacular groove with only really the final match disappointing and the Gargano-Ciampa brawl going a little long though Ciampa wanging a weight at a mirror was quite hilarious. Anyway next week Adam Cole gets to talk about how great he is so, yeah, sure.

Next Week:

Adam Cole Championship Celebration

NXT TakeOver: Tampa Women’s Championship Number One Contender’s Ladder Match Qualifier: Candice LeRae vs Mercedes Martinez

All Images courtesy of WWE.com