WWE NXT
Wednesday, October 17th
RESULTS: War Raiders over Kyle O’Reilly & Roderick Strong by DQ, Shayna Baszler over Britt Baker, Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch over Tian Bing & Rocky, Nikki Cross and Bianca Belair went to a no contest
-The show featured the return of Aleister Black in the final minutes when the lights went out during Nikki Cross and Bianca Belair’s match. Black appeared sitting in the ring as Cross rolled around with the audience chanting “Nikki’s got a secret”. Cross crawled towards Black, whispered into his ear and Black was shaking in anger as the show ended. I liked the cliffhanger element to end the show and bring people back next week for the reveal.
-Cross and Belair were having a very good match and developing a rivalry. This was a rematch from the September 12th episode and they were playing up how close Cross was coming to delivering Belair’s first singles loss. Belair did this great feat of strength by lifting Cross with a military press and began squatting before Cross transitioned to her back. Belair has outstanding charisma, but Cross has also found her character and has become one of the more popular characters on the show with the Aleister Black secret she’s been keeping.
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-The tag title match with Kyle O’Reilly & Roderick Strong defending against the War Raiders was excellent. The NXT tag division has been on fire this year and no one is matching the quality on a weekly basis from the core teams in NXT and I’d include British Strong Style unit as well in that mix. Undisputed Era worked on the left knee of Raymond Rowe for a solid portion until the tag was made to Hanson. One of the best spots of the match was Hanson sending Strong off his shoulders and onto the right knee of Rowe, with great attention to detail not using the left knee that was injured. War Raiders had the match won after hitting Fallout when Bobby Fish attacked them with a chair for the disqualification. Excellent match, although disappointing finish but you know where this is leading to and it didn’t hurt it for me.
-Shayna Baszler defeated Britt Baker by stomping her elbow and leading to a referee’s stoppage. It’s cool when they do these alternate finishes, especially for the right person like Baszler that it suits. Baker was screaming in agony and it was too much.
-Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch got a quick win over Tian Bing & Rocky with an assisted implant DDT (the Guerrilla Warfare that Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa use). No much to the match other than a re-introduction for Lorcan & Burch, who had a great feature on television recently. I can’t say Bing or Rocky did anything to stand out other than being the foils for the featured act.
-This was a fine show. The tag match took it up several notches and was probably the best match on WWE television this week. William Regal will be making an announcement on next week’s show about TakeOver: War Games next month in Los Angeles.
