BRM Reviews the 7/27/2021 NXT

[Big Red Machine]

TIMOTHY THATCHER & TOMMAS CIAMPA vs. PETE DUNNE & ONEY LORCAN- 7.5/10
The heels won a very hard-hitting match when Ridge Holland returned to take out Thatcher, allowing Dunne to pin Ciampa. Thatcher went after Holland after the match but the heels beat the babyfaces up. A very impactful return for Holland.

Beth Phoenix compared a clothesline to a baseball. Not a baseball bat. Just a baseball. Is there no other woman they could get to do this?

CARMELO HAYES VIDEO PACKAGE/PROMO- great

SAMOE IS HERE AND IS VERY ANGRY- and late

HIT ROW PROMO- great
They touched on a variety of potential opponents.

SAMOA JOE CALLS OUT… WILLIAM REGAL?- GREAT!
Joe says that he knows Regal is planning to fire Kross (who isn’t here tonight) for attacking him last week, but instead Joe convinces Regal to reinstate him as a member of the active roster and give him an NXT Title shot against Karrion Kross at TakeOver: XXXVI.

JOSH BRIGGS VIDEO PACKAGE/PROMO- good

EARLIER TODAY, CAMERON GRIMES WAS BEING L.A. KNIGHT’S CADDY- bad
Grimes was annoying. Not as annoying as he used to be, but he was still annoying.

NXT BREAKOUT TOURNAMENT QUARTERFINAL MATCH: Carmelo Hayes vs. Josh Briggs- 6.75/10
Beth said that Hayes had “a wealth of arsenal” to use. LEARN ENGLISH!
Duke Hudson came out to do commentary after the first break. He as quite good. He’ll face the winner in the semifinals. Said winner was Hayes, who won a very good big vs. small match.


LAST WEEK, MCKENZIE MITCHELL’S INTERVIEW WITH FRANKIE MONET & FRIENDS WAS INTERRUPTED BY KAYDEN CARTER & KACY CATANZARO- on the whole, not good
Monet was excellent here, and Stone was great in the background (he’s completely blind to Monet essentially stealing his clients). Then Team KC showed up and… well…
Look. They did a good job of delivering the performance that I’m sure they were told to give, but the performance they were told to give and script they were given were TERRIBLE. Everything from the completely scripted verbiage to the condescending and lecturing tone to the completely childish nature of the whole thing. Frankie thinks she and Jessi Kamea can just form a team and win the tag titles without much difficulty? So what?! An adult should not be upset by this and feel the need to give a lecture about the importance developing tag team chemistry!
It hit the point where Monet’s closing line- “at first I thought their spunk was cute, but now they’re just annoying”- rang WAY too true. If even someone like me who likes generic babyfaces thought this was bad, I can’t imagine how much damage this is doing to people who don’t.

MORE OF CAMERON GRIMES BEING L.A. KNIGHT’S CADDY- even worse than before
Grimes was being extremely annoying. Even after Knight asked him to stop what he was doing, Grimes kept doing it.
Knight eventually sent Grimes to go get a ball that Knight hit into a water hazard, and, of course, Ted Dibiase just happens to be there. Is he stalking Cameron Grimes?
Ted asked why Grimes was being Knight’s butler, so I guess Ted doesn’t watch the TV. Grimes said that he was being a man of his word. That was true last week (and was why last week’s segments worked so well for me), but it’s not ringing true this week (especially in this segment), because Grimes was being so annoying. Ted gave Grimes an inspirational speech about how people like Knight will just keep abusing you, and told Grimes that Grimes wasn’t born to be a butler. Ted’s not wrong that Knight is the sort of person who won’t stop abusing people, but maybe Grimes should have thought of that before he volunteered himself for eternal servitude to such a person. Who gives a sh*t about the made-up title belt? If you wanted revenge for attacking Dibiase, why didn’t you just keep attacking Knight every week? Why did you need to agree to a match with stupid stipulations?

RIDGE HOLLAND INTERVIEW AS HE AND HIS PALS WERE LEAVING THE BUILDING- Holland was good here, but the question itself seemed a little dumb to me. I figured the reason he attacked Thatcher was that Thatcher was wrestling his allies, Dunne and Lorcan.

RAQUEL GONZALEZ & DAKOTA KAI SEGMENT- very good
They come out to the ring and Raquel cuts the badass babyface “who’s next?” promo. Dakota then starts to put Raquel over huge and the music played and they started celebrating and- yup- Dakota turned on her. It will nice to see Raquel finally be a solid babyface instead of this wishy-washy crap they’ve been doing with her.

ADAM COLE PROMO- good

EARLIER TODAY, ZOEY STARK TRIES TO GET IO SHIRAI TO SEE THE IMPORTANCE OF NOT BEING A LONER WHEN YOU’RE IN A TAG TEAM- fine

OUR CAMERAS SPY ON MANDY ROSE TALKING TO GIGI DOLAN & JACY JANE (whose names I never would have known without Beth narrating them)- In kayfabe, why did we cut to this? Mandy shoos the camera away from her private conversation, as is her right.

KAYDEN CARTER & KACY CATANZARO vs. FRANKY MONET & JESSI KAMEA (w/Robert Stone)- 2.25/10
The annoying babyfaces win a short match when Stone distracts his own team.

WADE BARRETT’S SIT-DOWN INTERVIEW WITH RODERICK STRONG & MALCOLM BIVENS- great
This did a good job of building to more matches with Fish and KUSHIDA. Fish vs. Roddy will happen next week. Roddy’s stubbly beard makes him look old.

DAKOTA KAI REFUSES AN INTERVIEW ON HER WAY OUT OF THE BUILDING- I’m pretty sure that was Gabe Sapolsky behind the camera asking the question. Or maybe it was Jimmy Bauer or Chris Lovey.

IMPERIUM (Fabian Aichner & Marcel Barthel) vs. HIT ROW (Ashantee Adonis & Top Dolla) (w/B-Fab & Isaiah “Swerve” Scott)- 6/10
Imperium won after interference from Legado del Fantasma. LDF beat Hit Row up after the match, too. They gave Top Dolla a little comeback spot against the lackeys, but Escobar took him down. Scott eventually chased the heels off with a chair.

THE WAY BACKSTAGE- bad
Why did we cut to this?
They’re arguing over whose fault it was that Austin Theory left. An attendant gave Indi a present, which was a picture drawn by Dexter Lumis of Lumis in Theory’s place in The Way. Indi loved the idea, but Johnny and Candice did not. Indi suggested a match where if Dexter wins, he gets to join the family, but if Gargano loses, Indi must never see or talk about Dexter again. THESE ARE GROWN F*CING ADULTS DOING THIS! They’re all clowns.
Speaking of clowns…

EVEN MORE OF CAMERON GRIMES BEING L.A. KNIGHT’S CADDY- dumb
The Grizzled Young Veterans are here, too, and they are trying to rush Knight. Grimes makes a $10,00 bet on Knight’s behalf, but Knight agrees to it and screw up. Knight yells at Grimes and gives him the “you think you could do better?!” speech. Grimes takes the club and accidentally hits Knight first in the nuts and then in the head with the club, while also hitting a hole in one, completely with stupid music. I came here to watch professional wrestling, not a Nickelodeon made-for-TV movie.
Knight apparently has amnesia or something, because Grimes tells him that GYV attacked him and Knight believes him, even though he was facing GYV when he got hurt.


ADAM COLE vs. BRONSON REED- 7.5/10
Cole wins clean. This wasn’t quite at the level of the main event, and wasn’t at the level that Reed needed it to be in order to feel like he benefited from a clean loss to Cole.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- Kyle O’Reilly attacked Cole with a chair, then gave him a “brainbuster” (which looked a lot more like a vertical suplex) onto the stairs, just like Cole did to him. If the idea is that this is Kyle turning heel and Cole turning babyface, I like it. Otherwise… I can’t think of anything Cole has done recently to deserve an attack like this. He beat Kyle clean at the Great American Bash.


This was a fine show from NXT. The stuff that is usually good continues to be good while the stuff that is usually bad continues to be bad.