BRM Reviews the 8/26/2020 NXT (awesome!)

[Big Red Machine]

KARRION KROSS IS INJURED AND MUST RELINQUISH THE NXT TITLE- tremendous
I thought this was done about as well as it could be. I loved his specific phrasing that “I know they won’t let me defend the NXT Title in this condition.” This promo was everything Bray Wyatt wants to me. This a man who understands character, framing, motifs, symbolism, and how to get even more play out of those things by using the context of a new situation to reframe their meanings.

If you were hoping Mauro Ranallo would be back on commentary tonight… I’VE GOT SOME BAD NEWS!

Yup. Wade Barrett.


NXT TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Imperium (Marcel Barthel & Fabian Aichner)(c) vs. Tyler Breeze & Fandango- 8/10
Breezango jumped the bell on the heels. The idea was to show that they had a “different demeanor” than usual, but I thought this came off as too heelish. Other than that, I loved this match. It was just plain great tag team wrestling with good babyface/heel dynamics and some great little twists and turns. That finish was definitely spectacular and was something I hadn’t seen before.
The big news is, of course, the title change. While I’m pretty sure that a big chunk of why this happened was so Imperium could go back to the UK and quarantine for two weeks before NXT UK starts up and not have to take the tag titles with them (thus making them inaccessible to NXT Prime), the change did feel organic, even if it was a little out of the blue. Breezango have been build up relatively well over the past few months- as likable people you want to see succeed, even if their W-L record has only been a bit above mediocre), and they are absolutely the right choice to win the belts because they are the new faces in a division with some long-term teams like Undisputed Era and Burch & Lorcan.

TIMOTHY THATCHER INTERRUPTS MCKENZIE MITCHELL’S INTERVIEW WITH DAMIAN PRIEST- Priest came across like an arrogant dick and Thatcher came across like a babyface, even though Priest is a babyface and Thatcher is a heel at the moment. This segment pretty much proved that both men’s natural position is the opposite of what they’re doing currently, and I hope we get a double-turn soon.

They showed us footage from earlier today peeking into a room where Regal, Shawn, Hunter, and Albert were presumably discussing what to do about the NXT Title. I like that Regal was the one sitting at the head of the table because NXT is his domain.

TOMMASO CIAMPA vs. JAKE ATLAS- no rating, mostly GREAT segment
Ciampa was utterly vicious here. He quashed Atlas, and even attacked him after the match, too, guillotining him into the underside of the ring, for which Atlas did a stretcher job. Basically, Ciampa’s a heel again. I actually liked using Atlas as the jobber here, as him having some name helps show just how dominant Ciampa was, and it now gives Atlas a storyline for when he comes back.
If things had ended with the stretcher job, I would have loved this, but instead someone decided it was necessary for Ciampa to come back and DDT Atlas off of the stretcher. Then Ciampa’s minions dragged out Atlas’ mentor, brother, and his brother’s tag team partner and beat them up, too. Oops. Wrong show. But the attack on the stretcher really did happen. I didn’t like this part for two reasons, first of all, you don’t want to be seen as copying the other guy, and having someone get squashed and do a stretcher job, then have the heel attack him while he’s on the stretcher certainly qualifies as that. Making it worse is the fact that this then wound up suffering from an issue that plagued the very segment they seemed to be copying, which is that it went on for too long.


CANDICE LERAE VIDEO PACKAGE/PROMO ON TEGAN NOX- great!

AUSTIN THEORY INTERRUPTS MCKENZIE MITCHELL’S INTERVIEW WITH BRONSON REED- very good
McKenzie had asked Reed for his thoughts on Thatcher saying he should be the #1 contender for the North American Title, so we’re laying some more groundwork for another Reed vs. Priest match. Theory was a dick, so Bronson slapped him. Theory laughed it off.

PRE-MATCH WOMEN’S SEGMENT- F*CKING TERRIBLE!
Mia Yom comes out for her match. Apparently she- and everyone else- thought she would be wrestling Mercedes Martinez but she’s wrestling Aliyah instead because Stone wants Mercedes to recuperate after taking that big powerbomb onto the floor last week.
Then, once again FOR NO F*CKING REASON, Shotzi Blackheart comes out with her tank and crashes into Stone, this time from behind like a f*cking coward, rolls over his leg, and parks the tank on him. HE HAS DONE NOTHING TO HER!
Also, apparently she is now in this match instead of Aliyah, and Alicia Taylor just magically knows this, because she introduced Shotzi as Mia’s opponent.
Beth Phoenix would later justify this because “Robert Stone has been the bane of the women’s division for quite some time, pandering to get more talent.” “Pandering to get more talent?” He’s trying to recruit people! He’s a f*cking MANAGER! That’s what he does! That’d be like me saying Beth deserves to be run over with a tank because “the bane of NXT commentary, talking during the matches.” You can’t get angry at the man for doing his damn job well!

MIA YIM vs. SHOTZI BLACKHEART- 4.75/10
On my G-d, now Beth is putting Shotzi over with crap like “that’s her strategy: having no strategy.”
And now Shotzi got to beat MIA YIM?! ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME?! GAAAAHHHHH! What do people see in this woman other than a loud asshole? I just don’t get it.

MCKENZIE MITCHELL INTERVIEWS DAKOTA KAI & RAQUEL GONZALEZ- Good stuff from Dakota. Also, Raquel got to talk, and she was perfectly fine.

WILLIAM REGAL ANNOUNCES HOW WE WILL CROWN A NEW NXT CHAMPION- good
We’re getting a four-way next week between four former champions- Gargano, Ciampa, Balor, and Cole- in a four-way Ironman match. Hmm… I guess Gabe was in that booking meeting, too, but off camera. I wonder if we’ll get the deal where one of the guys who doesn’t win manages to avoid getting pinned/submitted the whole time and uses that to claim that he should be the rightful champion because he's the only one who wasn’t beaten. That would be a good spot for Ciampa, who also was never beaten for the title.
The one downside I see to this is that they’ll have to be very careful with what they do with Ciampa, just to make him not seem like he’s the normal Ciampa here in this four-way after clearly trying to show us that something has changed about him via tonight’s angle.

NXT CRUISERWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Santos Escobar(c) vs Isaiah “Swerve” Scott- 8/10
This was another awesome title match, but unlike the opener, the babyface challenger lost. Also unlike opener, I really didn’t like the finish here. Escobar is now using a loaded mask that I guess one of his cronies left at ringside when they interfered.

JOHNNY GARGANO PROMO- great build for the title match next week.

FINN BALOR PROMO- awesome!

DRAKE MAVERICK vs. KYLE O’REILLY (w/Bobby Fish & Roderick Strong)- 6.5/10
Hey, look! Undisputed Era running in on that match a few weeks ago so that Cole could cut a promo on McAfee is actually being followed up on!
Drake was a great underdog babyface who knew he had to take it to the opponent and did so at every opportunity, unfortunately, Kyle was just better and was able to capitalize on Drake tweaking his knee when he landed on Kyle’s reversal of the Dudley Dog, and Kyle locked in an Achilles Lock for the win.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT- interesting
I thought for sure that Kyle would show Drake respect after the match, but instead we got UE beating Maverick down until Killian Dain- the other man in the match that UE ran in on- ran out and took UE out. I then figured we were going to get Drake and Dain forming a big-man/little-man tag team (also, Drake is a great talker while Dain isn’t good at all, and it’ be another new team for the tag division), but instead Dain attacked Drake. This is a fine direction.

MCKENZIE MITCHELL INTERVIEWS RHEA RIPLEY- good
Between this and Dakota’s earlier promo, the story of “can Io and Rhea work together?” is now established for the main event.

ADAM COLE PROMO- very good

DAKOTA KAI & RAQUEL GONZALEZ vs. IO SHIRAI & RHEA RIPLEY- 7/10
This was pretty good for just over ten minutes. Io and Rhea didn’t work together well, but weren’t doing the cliché thing and antagonizing each other for no reason, either. Mercedes Martinez attacked Rhea at one point, and Raquel Gonzalez managed to pin Rhea, which the announcers put over as a big deal.


This was an awesome episode of NXT! A great way to rebound from an extremely disappointing TakeOver.