A quick rundown of last week’s show in case anyone missed it: Samoa Joe demanded the NXT Title back after he injured current champion Shinsuke Nakamura a week prior. When William Regal denied Joe the belt, he threatened he’d take his frustrations out on the rest of the roster.
The Greatest Man That Ever Lived Austin Aries beat The Worst Name That Ever Existed Oney Lorcan, after the match Aries called out Hideo Itami but chickened out when Itami answered his call.
Billie Kay beat Aliyah, there was no post-match story, and in the main event Cedric Alexander beat the man everyone loves to boo, Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas. Now onto this week.
Cold open this week as William Regal talks about the death of Dusty Rhodes a year ago, and announces the second ever Dusty Rhodes Classic, 16 teams in one tournament, the finals to be held at NXT TakeOver: Toronto, and the tournament will start next week.
Opening match, The Perfect Ten Tye Dillinger takes on The Curse of Greatness Angelo Dawkins. Tom Phillips says that Tye is back in the NXT ring for the first time… since a couple of weeks ago. The way he said it made it sound like he’d been out for ages.
Tye is much quicker than Dawkins and uses that to his advantage, while the bigger Dawkins slows down the offence whenever he’s in control. Tye has most of the offence but doesn’t do anything exciting until his Tye Breaker finisher for the three count and the win.
Fine match, Tye is really good and both he and Angelo Dawkins have loads of charisma, but there’s not much you can fit into a three minute match, y’know? After the match, Bobby Roode’s music hits! Roode comes out and says the Dillinger isn’t quite a ten yet, and says he came to NXT to compete and win the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, and says to compete he needs the perfect partner. He asks Tye and when the fans hear the name “Perfectly Glorious” the fans chant “Do it!”. Tye shakes Roode’s hand and the team is set.
Later tonight Liv Morgan will take on Asuka after requesting a match with her, Liv has had only two wins in NXT since her debut in June 2015, while Asuka is undefeated, I guess those two wins really got to her head. As well as that, Ember Moon will take on yellow Eva Marie, aka Mandy Rose.
Backstage. Hideo Itami is being interviewed. He’s fighting the debuting Lince Dorado, Itami says Lince has heart, unlike Austin Aries, who is a cowardly baby.
Tag team action up next as The Ealy Brothers, Gabriel and Uriel, make their NXT debut against the current Tag Team Champions The Revival. But wait! Samoa Joe is out here! He beats the crap out of The Ealy Brothers while The Revival back away.
Joe gets on the mic, he says that the Ealys are the first two victims of his demolition of NXT, and tells Regal to either give him Nakamura, or give him his title.
Later tonight is Hideo Itami vs Lince Dorado, but before that we get a vignette for some roidy fucker called Dan Matha. He’s the spitting image of Ryback.
Up next it’s All Gold Everything Mandy Rose vs Ember Moon. I don’t think I’ve seen Mandy in a singles match, so this’ll be interesting. According to Tom Phillips, Mandy Rose thinks very little of Ember Moon, but I think you could finish that sentence after the word ‘little’.
Mandy gets the upper hand early on with some basic offence, kicks and punches, but Ember gets the better of Rose with a nice Fallaway Slam followed by a crisp Springboard Crossbody from the middle rope.
Mandy’s offence is very weak, you can tell she’s only been wrestling for just over a year, but she does hit a very nice Bicycle Knee to Ember which gets a replay. Ember goes for a Flying Headscissors but Mandy drops her with a wicked looking Facebuster for a two count. Ember gets the upper hand once again and hits The Eclipse for the three count and the pinfall victory.
Good match, it was odd that Mandy Rose had most of the offence considering that Ember is more of a veteran, but in saying that I wasn’t disappointed by Mandy Rose, most of what she did was basic but she hit a couple of nices moves and Ember sold well for her.
Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa are backstage being interviewed, saying they would send a message to The Revival at the Cruiserweight Classic finals, and that’s what they did, they also mention how they debuted a year ago at the Dusty Rhodes Classic, and they plan on winning the NXT Tag Team Titles.
Then we see Asuka warming up before her match later tonight, but up next it’s the Authors of Pain.
Authors of Pain make their way to the ring led by a puppetless Paul Ellering. They’re fighting Jesus Yurnet (and I thought Oney Lorcan was a bad name) and Jonathon Cruz. Also, I know that the AOP have been named Akam and Rezar, but I still don’t know which ones which so I’m just going to call them The Tattooed One and The Other One. Also I don’t know which one is Jonathon and which one is Jesus, so again, I’m going to call the The Tattooed One and The Other One, so this match might get confusing.
The Tattooed One starts off by ramming The Tattooed One into his partner’s corner before taking said partner out. Okay that’s too confusing, I’ve got to look this up. Turns out the tattooed AOP is Akam and the other dude with tattoos is Jesus.
Akam throws Jesus across the ring and tags out to Rezar. The two knee the crap out of Jesus before Rezar drags Jonathon into the ring only to Military Press him out again. He tags to Akam, the hit their Side Russian Legsweep/Clothesline tag finisher and Akam gets the pinfall victory.
Nothing much happened, but Authors of Pain still look like monsters, so that’s good. Afterwards Ellering gets on the mic, he says the first chapter began with the arrival of AOP and the second will unleash a plethora of pain.
Backstage, Regal is being interviewed, he is asked if he can give us an update on Shinsuke Nakamura, but Regal can’t, so instead he’s asked about the Dusty Rhodes Classic, but before he can answer Blake and Murphy interrupt and ask to be put into the tournament, not much happened but it got the tag tournament over.
Up next is Liv Morgan vs Asuka. Corey Graves says Asuka is so dangerous that everyone she fights is sent to RAW or Smackdown, which is an odd complimeny. Everyone she fights gets a promotion is essentially what he’s saying.
The commentators get over how stupid Liv Morgan is for challenging Asuka and the crowd chant “Asuka’s gonna kill you!”. Collar and elbow tie up, Liv pushes Asuka, collar and elbow tie up again, Liv Dropkicks Asuka, throws a couple of Forearms the third of which Asuka blocks, Asuka shoves Liv down, Liv goes for Asuka but Asuka gets her in a submission and Liv taps out, and that was the entire match.
Wow who did Liv piss off to get jobbed out like that? Asuka no sold everything Liv did and Liv only took one move (unless you count being shoved to the mat a move) and tapped to it.
Post-match, Asuka is asked what is next for her as someone in the crowd shouts “Ember! Ember!” But Asuka just says that no one is ready for her and leaves it at that.
Up next is the main event, Hideo Itami vs Lince Dorado, and next week Cedric Alexander and Andrade Almas will take on The Revival in the opening round of the Dusty Rhodes Classic.
Lince Dorado is out first making his NXT debut. Lince made his wrestling debut in Chikara in 2007, he was there for four years before making an appearance in TNA and working in the indies and eventually appeared in WWE’s Cruiserweight Classic tournament, he’s currently on the RAW brand but just for tonight (I’m guessing) he’s in NXT.
Hideo is out second and we’re shown when Aries called out Hideo, calling him a coward and a baby before Hideo came out all pissed and Aries ran off. Lince and Hideo shake hands to start things off followed by some nice chain wrestling.
Lince uses his speed to get the better of the striker Itami, and manages to evade Itami and hits a nice Hurricanrana early on. Lince goes for a Springboard into the ring but Hideo Kicks Lince down. The fans seem to be 50/50 in this face vs face match, and both are equally good. Lince hits a nice Asai Moonsault to the outside onto Itami and we go to an ad break. When we get back Lince is working over the arm that Hideo had surgery on.
Lince seems to be having most of the offence but Hideo comes back with a huge Flying Clothesline. More fast-paced action, Hideo goes for a Hesitation Dropkick to Lince in the corner but Lince gets out of the way and hits a Hurricanrana with a pin for a two count.
Lince goes up top but misses a beautiful Shooting Star Press. Hideo gets him in the corner, takes him down and hits his Hesitation Dropkick, and then everyone chants “GTS! GTS!” He gets Lince up and hits him with the GTS for the three count pinfall victory.
Really good match, just goes to show you can have good matches, even with only an hour of TV time. Both men are great, it’s great to see Hideo back. After the match, Austin Aries comes out and attacks Hideo from behind. He beats Hideo up but when Hideo is about to get his own back Aries flees, and that’s all folks!
Overall, pretty damn good show. The opener between Tye Dillinger and Angelo Dawkins was alright, they’re both really charismatic, but I’ve seen hundreds of Tye Dillinger matches, all of them are the same. Mandy Rose vs Ember Moon was an alright match, not much happened but Ember busted out some really nice moves while Mandy hit a couple of good’uns herself. Liv Morgan vs Asuka was just a squash, as was AOP vs some jobbers. The main event was the match of the night, but I’ve seen better NXT TV main events, but then again I’ve also seen worse.
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