So this broadcast week for NXT is basically about two things; making it clear what the main event is going to be at TakeOver New York, and also making it clear which tag team is going to take on War Raiders with the Dusty Cup in their hands. But before we begin, it has been a rough time lately for some of our favorite NXT performers on both sides of the pond; obviously the loss of Tommaso Ciampa is the one most deeply felt since it impacts a storyline that's been going on for two years and ideally should have culminated at this upcoming TakeOver, but UK also lost Rhea Ripley due to injury and she was on the cusp of possibly putting over the introduction of Piper Niven onto the UK Women's roster, there's also Noam Dar getting injured again after only being back for a few episodes of UK, and now Keith Lee is injured as well, and that ruins the potentially awesome grudge match we were going to get to see at TakeOver NY against Dominik Dijakovic. So these are people that we're going to miss for varying lengths of time, but at least TakeOver NY is going to have plenty to go with as far as some great match content for the show, so let's get on with this week's episode!
We started with Adam Cole (BAY BAY) coming out to the ring, where the vacated NXT Championship belt stood, talking about the million things that he can do to beat Johnny Gargano at TakeOver NY, but he wants to tell it to Johnny man-to-man. Johnny comes back out to the ring, and his fun logo is no longer "VENOM"-ized which is a nice little reminder that he's back as a pure babyface again. He sits on the top turnbuckle and after a long period of dueling chants, he asks Cole to list off the million things he can do to him. Since Cole doesn't say anything, Johnny suggests that the crowd take out their cameras so they can capture history in the making as, for the first time, Adam Cole is at a loss for words. Johnny talks about how his whole career has taken him on this path to the NXT title, and that Cole is in his path, and in New York, he's going to prove why he's also earned the nickname Johnny TakeOver. Cole recounts Johnny's recent history and says that his nickname should be Johnny Participation, because Cole has been the real thing: he was the first winner of the NXT North American title, and he won the very first ever NXT Wargames match.
Then Johnny gets truly fired up.
He does his super indie underdog speech about when he was told back in 2015 that he wasn't good enough for NXT. And they kept bringing him back until eventually NXT became his home. He fights for all the fans that chant Johnny Wrestling. And unlike Cole, he wasn't handed a top spot when he arrived with a "bunch of cronies" to do his dirty work from Day One. This NXT title is Johnny's destiny and he's fighting for it. Cole heads out of the ring and he reiterates that he's going to win, and why he's going to win is coming onto the stage, and that's all the other members of Undisputed Era. And he concluded by stating that Triple H said that this Two out of Three Falls match was going to be definitive and that Hunter was wrong: it was going to be undisputed.
I love when we have dueling promos with two fantastic contenders who are both good on the mic and both have legitimate claims to a title. Despite how great these promos were, I don't honestly think that this match needs any additional hype; this match is going to tear the fucking Barclays Center to the ground no matter how it turns out. I'd love to say that it doesn't really matter who goes over, but it totally matters to me. We'll get more into that in my Hopes and Predictions that I'm going to do next week for TakeOver NY.
Next up was a WWE.com exclusive post-match beatdown from two episodes back that Forgotten Sons gave to Aleister Black and Ricochet after they "beat" #DIY to get to the finals of the Dusty Classic. We're going to talk more about this as we go on.
Following that was a Women's tag match between the recently-formed team of Vanessa Borne and Aliyah vs Mae Young Classic standouts Lacey Lane and Kacy Catanzaro, so it was a nice chance to see what Lane and Catanzaro could do on NXT. At least, it might have been a nice chance to see that, because not long after the match began, it was invaded by Shayna Bazsler along with The Horsewomen. Borne and Aliyah beat a hasty retreat as Shayna laid waste to the newbies causing the No Contest. She went over to the announce table and said that this would continue until the NXT higher-ups stopped "mistreating" her and she climbed up onto the table and held the belt high. This was a little disappointing because I definitely wanted to see this match go a little longer, and while Shayna continuing to run roughshod over the Women's division is a good look for her, her reasoning doesn't quite align with her personality. It was at this point where I started to wonder where the hell William Regal has been. This is the kind of behavior that he usually tries to put the kibosh on, or could add a new stipulation to the Fatal 4-Way for the title, or at least ban the Horsewomen from ringside, but technically Fatal 4-Ways have no rules, so maybe he could have made some kind of match for next week where Io Shirai and Kairi Sane could take on The Horsewomen as punishment.
The next match was between Matt Riddle and the long-absent Kona Reeves. This would have been a pretty unremarkable match since Reeves is a whole lotta nothing, but A: Riddle is a terrific talent both in and out of the ring, and B: Velveteen Dream interrupted the match as he glided out onto the stage on a sofa, flanked by two beautiful women and sipping from a chalice. A fucking chalice. How awesome is that? This kind of thing is so perfect for Dream in regards to his spotlight-hounding. Riddle ended beating Reeves with The Bromission, and Dream interrupted the ring announcer to announce Riddle's win. Riddle came up onto the stage, took the chalice from Dream's hand, had a sip and dumped the rest of the water on his chest, and said that he would see him in New York. The Original Bro and Dream have done some fantastic work to highlight their upcoming match for the North American title, and the whole sofa and chalice thing was just so inspired an idea.
And in the main event, we got Ricochet and Aleister Black vs The Forgotten Sons for the Dusty Cup. First off, I just don't like Forgotten Sons. They have "go away" heat from me, and seem to have it from the rest of the crowd as well. Their gimmick is so lacking in any real characterization that it almost seems like something that would appear on the main roster. Secondly, I knew that Aleister and Ricochet would have to do all the heavy lifting in this match. If Blake and Cutler were at all interesting to watch in the ring, I'd likely forgive their lack of charisma or personality outside the ring, but they're not. Sure they're strong, but none of their moves are particularly big power moves so... they do absolutely nothing for me. I know that I predicted Forgotten Sons to go all the way, and in retrospect that seems like a bad call, but I made that call from a somewhat well-intentioned place. I think that this felt like a last "get yourselves over" hurrah for Forgotten Sons and they're going to end up being the new heel tag enhancement team. As it all turned out, the truly deserving team got the pin as Ricochet isolated Blake for the 630 and Ally and Ric won the Dusty Cup! I just figured that Forgotten Sons would win because they could be the easiest team to feed to War Raiders to keep the title on them, but having Black and Ricochet take on War Raiders is a much more fun match to look forward to at TakeOver, and since this TakeOver is on a Friday (which seems really weird), this will give Black and Ric that extra day off before they have to go to Mania to try for the Raw Tag titles, which seems like a complete given at this time since they've pinned The Revival twice now. I don't know what's going to happen after the big weekend, but it'll be interesting!
Well, that's it for this week! I'm sorry that I didn't have this prepped earlier but The Manager is suffering from a mild case of West Nile Virus and I've been taking care of her pretty much the whole time I haven't been working. So we'll see you next week with the recaps of the go-homes for Raw and Smackdown Live as well as NXT, and you're also going to be getting my Hopes and Predictions for NXT TakeOver New York next week as well!
Until next time, kids...
We started with Adam Cole (BAY BAY) coming out to the ring, where the vacated NXT Championship belt stood, talking about the million things that he can do to beat Johnny Gargano at TakeOver NY, but he wants to tell it to Johnny man-to-man. Johnny comes back out to the ring, and his fun logo is no longer "VENOM"-ized which is a nice little reminder that he's back as a pure babyface again. He sits on the top turnbuckle and after a long period of dueling chants, he asks Cole to list off the million things he can do to him. Since Cole doesn't say anything, Johnny suggests that the crowd take out their cameras so they can capture history in the making as, for the first time, Adam Cole is at a loss for words. Johnny talks about how his whole career has taken him on this path to the NXT title, and that Cole is in his path, and in New York, he's going to prove why he's also earned the nickname Johnny TakeOver. Cole recounts Johnny's recent history and says that his nickname should be Johnny Participation, because Cole has been the real thing: he was the first winner of the NXT North American title, and he won the very first ever NXT Wargames match.
Then Johnny gets truly fired up.
He does his super indie underdog speech about when he was told back in 2015 that he wasn't good enough for NXT. And they kept bringing him back until eventually NXT became his home. He fights for all the fans that chant Johnny Wrestling. And unlike Cole, he wasn't handed a top spot when he arrived with a "bunch of cronies" to do his dirty work from Day One. This NXT title is Johnny's destiny and he's fighting for it. Cole heads out of the ring and he reiterates that he's going to win, and why he's going to win is coming onto the stage, and that's all the other members of Undisputed Era. And he concluded by stating that Triple H said that this Two out of Three Falls match was going to be definitive and that Hunter was wrong: it was going to be undisputed.
I love when we have dueling promos with two fantastic contenders who are both good on the mic and both have legitimate claims to a title. Despite how great these promos were, I don't honestly think that this match needs any additional hype; this match is going to tear the fucking Barclays Center to the ground no matter how it turns out. I'd love to say that it doesn't really matter who goes over, but it totally matters to me. We'll get more into that in my Hopes and Predictions that I'm going to do next week for TakeOver NY.
Next up was a WWE.com exclusive post-match beatdown from two episodes back that Forgotten Sons gave to Aleister Black and Ricochet after they "beat" #DIY to get to the finals of the Dusty Classic. We're going to talk more about this as we go on.
Following that was a Women's tag match between the recently-formed team of Vanessa Borne and Aliyah vs Mae Young Classic standouts Lacey Lane and Kacy Catanzaro, so it was a nice chance to see what Lane and Catanzaro could do on NXT. At least, it might have been a nice chance to see that, because not long after the match began, it was invaded by Shayna Bazsler along with The Horsewomen. Borne and Aliyah beat a hasty retreat as Shayna laid waste to the newbies causing the No Contest. She went over to the announce table and said that this would continue until the NXT higher-ups stopped "mistreating" her and she climbed up onto the table and held the belt high. This was a little disappointing because I definitely wanted to see this match go a little longer, and while Shayna continuing to run roughshod over the Women's division is a good look for her, her reasoning doesn't quite align with her personality. It was at this point where I started to wonder where the hell William Regal has been. This is the kind of behavior that he usually tries to put the kibosh on, or could add a new stipulation to the Fatal 4-Way for the title, or at least ban the Horsewomen from ringside, but technically Fatal 4-Ways have no rules, so maybe he could have made some kind of match for next week where Io Shirai and Kairi Sane could take on The Horsewomen as punishment.
The next match was between Matt Riddle and the long-absent Kona Reeves. This would have been a pretty unremarkable match since Reeves is a whole lotta nothing, but A: Riddle is a terrific talent both in and out of the ring, and B: Velveteen Dream interrupted the match as he glided out onto the stage on a sofa, flanked by two beautiful women and sipping from a chalice. A fucking chalice. How awesome is that? This kind of thing is so perfect for Dream in regards to his spotlight-hounding. Riddle ended beating Reeves with The Bromission, and Dream interrupted the ring announcer to announce Riddle's win. Riddle came up onto the stage, took the chalice from Dream's hand, had a sip and dumped the rest of the water on his chest, and said that he would see him in New York. The Original Bro and Dream have done some fantastic work to highlight their upcoming match for the North American title, and the whole sofa and chalice thing was just so inspired an idea.
And in the main event, we got Ricochet and Aleister Black vs The Forgotten Sons for the Dusty Cup. First off, I just don't like Forgotten Sons. They have "go away" heat from me, and seem to have it from the rest of the crowd as well. Their gimmick is so lacking in any real characterization that it almost seems like something that would appear on the main roster. Secondly, I knew that Aleister and Ricochet would have to do all the heavy lifting in this match. If Blake and Cutler were at all interesting to watch in the ring, I'd likely forgive their lack of charisma or personality outside the ring, but they're not. Sure they're strong, but none of their moves are particularly big power moves so... they do absolutely nothing for me. I know that I predicted Forgotten Sons to go all the way, and in retrospect that seems like a bad call, but I made that call from a somewhat well-intentioned place. I think that this felt like a last "get yourselves over" hurrah for Forgotten Sons and they're going to end up being the new heel tag enhancement team. As it all turned out, the truly deserving team got the pin as Ricochet isolated Blake for the 630 and Ally and Ric won the Dusty Cup! I just figured that Forgotten Sons would win because they could be the easiest team to feed to War Raiders to keep the title on them, but having Black and Ricochet take on War Raiders is a much more fun match to look forward to at TakeOver, and since this TakeOver is on a Friday (which seems really weird), this will give Black and Ric that extra day off before they have to go to Mania to try for the Raw Tag titles, which seems like a complete given at this time since they've pinned The Revival twice now. I don't know what's going to happen after the big weekend, but it'll be interesting!
Well, that's it for this week! I'm sorry that I didn't have this prepped earlier but The Manager is suffering from a mild case of West Nile Virus and I've been taking care of her pretty much the whole time I haven't been working. So we'll see you next week with the recaps of the go-homes for Raw and Smackdown Live as well as NXT, and you're also going to be getting my Hopes and Predictions for NXT TakeOver New York next week as well!
Until next time, kids...
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