This week’s edition of NXT featured matches taped prior to TakeOver from the Smoothie King Center this past Saturday in New Orleans, Louisiana.
KAIRI SANE VS LACEY EVANS
The audience was very enthused as this was the opening match of the night.
Evans landed a slingshot elbow from the apron into the ring. Evans attacked her with chops in the corner. Sane ran the ropes and was caught with a shoulder breaker. Sane landed a spear off the ropes and both were down on the canvas.
Sane rallied back with a running blockbuster and a Sliding D into the corner. Sane climbed to the top and landed a forearm for a two-count.
Sane landed a spinning back fist, climbed to the top and hit the Insane Elbow off the top for the victory.
WINNER: KAIRI SANE
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This was a fine match for television and warmup for the live audience. Sane sold throughout fought from underneath and peaked the audience through her comeback.
Cathy Kelley interviewed The Undisputed Era, including Adam Cole with both the North Amercian and NXT tag championship. Roderick Strong whispered to Cole and they all walked off.
There was a clip of The Authors of Pain debut from Raw. Mike Rome interview AOP after Raw, they were confronted by Paul Ellering and said he developed the strategy to win the Dusty Classic and become NXT tag champions. They said, “your chapter has ended” and walked away without Ellering.
Johnny Gargano will appear on next week’s episode.
Kayla Braxton interviewed Shayna Baszler, she said, “this isn’t a bandwagon, it’s a war wagon” and you don’t get to jump on. To her and Ronda Rousey, this is just another weekend. She is going to change the NXT women’s division from who receives compliments on their hair into who can wrestle.
They aired the highlights of Ember Moon’s debut on Raw and pinning Alexa Bliss in her tag match.
Mike Rome spoke to Moon and Nia Jax, Moon is starting a new chapter and her regret is leaving the monster Shayna Baszler with the rest of the women in NXT, but they will dethrone her.
They aired clips of No Way Jose’s debut on Raw and the debut of The Iconics on SmackDown Live.
Lars Sullivan will take on Killian Dane next week.
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HEAVY MACHINERY VS RIDDICK MOSS AND TINO SABBATELLI
There were immediate chants of “Tino sucks” from the New Orleans crowd.
Knight and Dozovic did a Bushwhackers tribute early on.
They got the advantage on Knight in their corner. They cut the ring off and wore down Knight. Knight got out of the way in the corner and rolled to his corner and tagged Dozovic, who fired up and the audience got into a lot.
Dozovic did the “caterpillar” and dropped an elbow onto Sabbatelli, but Moss made the save.
The former War Machine, now “War Raiders” ran in and attacked everyone to an enormous reaction.
WINNERS: NO CONTEST
Sabbatelli took a spin kick from Hanson, knee strike from Raymond Rowe and then hit the Fallout onto Sabbatelli.
The audience loved the run-in and attack to end the show.
This was a largely skippable show, as most post-Takeover shows are for NXT, although you got the payoff of War Machine’s debut to close the show on a high note.
