WWE NXT has had a good run wrestling wise the last couple of weeks even if the ratings don’t show it. This week had more of the same, but it wasn’t quite at their previous level.
The highlights
- Tommaso Ciampa returned with a vengeance. While not the best match of the night, it did have the distinction of setting the night’s trend — quick and showed dominance. It was good to see Ciampa come back after such a serious injury, so this worked great to set the stage for him.
- Velveteen Dream’s injury. While him being injured isn’t a good thing, using it to further the storylines is. In this case, a video showed him laid out after the Undisputed Era (Kyle O’Reilly, Roderick Strong, Adam Cole, and Bobby Fish) repaid him for his actions last week. This led to Commissioner William Regal declaring the winner of the Keith Lee and Dominik Dijakovic match would determine the number one contender for Strong’s North American championship next week.
- Johnny Gargano. A cool video of his career and crossing paths with Ciampa ushered in an interview where he admitted he didn’t know how he felt about Ciampa before leaving. Given how the Undisputed Era had circled the ring with Ciampa in it, this screams as a future joining of forces.
- Women’s division. Though there were only two matches ( Io Shirai – Kayden Carter and Tegan Nox def. Taynara), they were high energy and exciting, and came at a time when the flow needed a jump start. Given the sluggishness of most of the matches, they carried the show until the main event.
- Finn Balor’s message. It’ obvious he came back to NXT to give them some star power across from Chris Jericho (Kinda shows McMahon’s current feelings, doesn’t it?), but his monologue was deep and well written and delivered. It signaled that he felt he was retracing his steps to correct a past mistake, like going to WWE’s main brands? Overall this is a cool way to distance NXT from Raw and Smackdown while remaining part of the company
- Pete Dunne and Damian Priest. By far the best match of the night, this saved the show overall. They closed the show with a hard fought, throwback style of match that came down to who would do whatever it took to win.
Final thoughts
The matches were entertaining, but lacked the oomph of previous weeks. Finn Balor’s tease and Dunne and Priest’s rivalry should be good in the coming weeks. The fact that we get a triple threat match between Roderick Strong, Keith Lee, and Dominic Dijakovic for the North American championship next week makes up for the slow, saving energy type of match we saw between Dijakovic and Lee.
