TYE DILLENGER vs.
“Oney Lorcan” sounds like a joke name. I did some research into it, and on the entirety of Wikipedia, there are only TWO people named Oney. One was a slave of George and Martha Washington who escaped to freedom in 1796, the other is Ozzie Guillen’s son.
The match was a lot better than I was expecting (mostly because I was expecting Dillenger to win in about five minutes).
AN INTERVIEWER INTERVIEWS AUSTIN ARIES- good segment.
Aries was great. Then No Way Jose showed up to tell him to stay positive, totally stealing the gimmick I am doing with Bo Dallas in my fantasy booking.
BAYLEY PROMO- she will be returning to action tonight. She was excited about it. I thought it was kind of weird that she was wearing her gear outside.
NO WAY JOSE vs. JOSH WOODS- 0.75/10
Short.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT-
Aries comes out. He’s definitely going heel eventually because he keeps making an excuse for his loss to Nakamura then saying “excuses aside” or “real men don’t make excuses.” He did it both here and in the earlier interview. He says that Jose reminded him that NXT is about having fun and reminding him who he really is. He offers Jose a handshake. Aries goes to leave but Jose wants him to dance. He’s definitely getting an ass kicking here.
They dance for a while and WHAT THE F*CK?! They went up the ramp with nary a brainbuster in sight. Now they’re dancing on top of the announcers’ table and now Tom Phillips is dancing and FINALLY! Aries beats the sh*t out of No Way Jose.
REGAL & SHINSUKE IN REGAL’S OFFICE- Regal announces Balor vs. Nakamura in three weeks on NXT. Buddy Murphy showed up to interrupt and yelled at Regal for not treating him like a big star. Nakamura said… something… to Murphy, but it ended in “mate.” I laughed. Regal implied that they will face off later tonight.
BAYLEY vs DEONNA PURRAZZO- 3.5/10
I don’t get what it is about Purrazzo that people in wrestling companies seem to like so much. There is no way she should be able to be working WWE, TNA, and ROH all at the same time for so long. She’s not a particularly great worker or anything. I’m amazed that WWE and TNA are okay with her doing this.
The match was very good for the time it got.
ANOTHER NEW INTERVIEWER INTERVIEWS CARMELLA- Alexa Bliss! showed up to save the segment. Alexa managed to cut a great heel promo on Carmella and totally bury her without telling a single lie.
SAMOA JOE VIDEO PACKAGE- good, but kind of pointless.
ASUKA VS. NIA JAX VIDEO- like the Joe thing, this was good but pointless. Unlike the Joe thing, this went WAY too long, especially to recap a match that is now old news. Also, coming right after the Joe video package made both of them feel a lot more like filler (which I’m certain is what they were) than they would have if they were spread out more.
AUTHORS OF PAIN VIDEO PACKAGE- good.
AMERICAN ALPHA WILL BE BACK NEXT WEEK- it was only when they mentioned that American Alpha lost the tag titles that I remembered that The Revival were the current tag champs… and I don’t think they’ve been mentioned on TV since Takeover until now.
NIA JAX vs. LIV MORGAN- squash
They need to get that stupid “201” crap out of her TitanTron. No one in northern New Jersey identifies by area code. We do it by local municipality.
Alexa Bliss! vs. Carmella next week. That should be… well… I can’t honestly say it will be “great” (or even “good”) but at least Alexa will probably win, so that will make me happy.
SHINSUKE NAKAMURA vs. BUDDY MURPHY- 4.5/10
Pretty much a filler episode of NXT. I mean… some of the stuff that happened had value (the Alexa-Carmella segment led to a match for next week, and there was also Aries heel turn and Bayley’s return to action), but the majority of the show (including all of the matches aside from Bayley’s return, which was a short match with a foregone conclusion) felt like total filler. Not good.