BRM Reviews the 11/18/2020 NXT (OUTSTANDING!)

[Big Red Machine]

NXT NORTH AMERICAN TITLE MATCH: Leon Ruff(c) vs. Johnny Gargano- 4.75/10
Gargano cut a GREAT pre-match promo on Ruff, then sucker-punched him to kick things off. The match went less than five minutes, and was outstanding for the time it got. The finish saw Priest come out and hit Ruff to cause a DQ when Gargano had been dominating, but I did like the fact on that pinfall that Priest pulled Ruff out of the ring during, Ruff’s foot was actually under the bottom rope the whole time, so if Priest hadn’t gotten involved, he still would have survived.
Priest is definitely coming off like a dick here, and for that reason I thought it would have been a lot better to have him just leave ruff at ringside rather than bringing him up the stage with him. I also didn’t like Ruff celebrating retaining his title when someone else attacked him to cause his opponent to get DQed. That’s the sort of thing an unworthy goof would do, and for this title reign to be a good thing, it needs at least be the start of Ruff becoming a serious wrestler.

BLINDFOLD MATCH: Cameron Grimes vs. Dexter Lumis- no rating, meh segment
We started off with Lumis standing completely still while Grimes did the usual blindfold match heel comedy. Grimes accidentally took out the referee, then took off his blindfold and tried to attack Lumis but Lumis was able to counter everything. This was the point where this fell apart for me. They are making Lumis feel more and more supernatural, and unless you are 1) CHIKARA or Lucha Underground and 2) going to be consistent with it, supernatural in wrestling is bad. Lumis beat Grimes up until Grimes ran away, giving us a no-contest.

WILLIAM REGAL, DAMIAN PRIEST, & LEON RUFF BACKSTAGE- AWESOME!
Regal yells at Priest, who has a week defense for himself, which is that he didn’t want Gargano to win the title, which he surely would have because Ruff is “a joke.” Ruff overheard this and came over stand up to Priest. He told Regal that if he can’t retain the title without help, Regal should just strip him of it. Priest tried to backtrack, but Ruff slapped him in the face and left. Regal told Priest that he deserved that. This was EXACTLY what Ruff needed to do here!

SHOTZI BLACKHEART PROMO- She is apparently captaining a War Games team against Candice. This feels totally unnecessary. You don’t need two War Games matches.
And, once again, Shotzi’s stupid howling makes me want to see her get her ass kicked, and the fact remains that she spent weeks trying to maim Robert Stone for no good reason and has shown no remorse for it, and they want me to feel bad for her because Candice broke her toy tank?

CANDICE LERAE & INDI HARTWELL vs. KAYDEN CARTER & KACY CATANZARO- 3.5/10
This was short but good for what it was. I really want them to give Team KC (my name for them, not official to my knowledge) more time.

KUSHIDA vs. ARTURO RUAS- 4.5/10
Fun grappling. Ruas is another guy they should give more time to. I would LOVE to see these two get twenty minutes.

MCKENZIE MITCHELL INTERVIEWS TONI STORM & EMBER MOON- good

VARIOUS PEOPLE PICK WINNERS FOR THE WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH- good

TONI STORM & EMBER MOON vs. DAKOTA KAI & RAQUEL GONZALEZ- 7/10

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine, I guess
This was a good attack by first Candice and Indi, and then by Dakota and Gonzalez. This definitely felt like something that was only happening because War Games is coming up and we need teams to form, which does take away from it for me. Thankfully, Tom Phillips swooped in at the end for the save by asking if this was Candice’s way of helping the other heels out to try to recruit them, moving the agency from the mysterious non-character hand of the storyteller to where it should be, which is with the characters (in this case, Candice).

TIMOTHY THATCHER vs. AUGUST GREY- 6.75/10
Thatcher won a VICIOUS match, though Grey was allowed to have the gutsy showing he needed.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
Thatcher cut a promo calling Grey that another rule of Thatch-as-Thatch-Can is “don’t start a fight with someone you can’t beat!” He went to attack Grey some more but Tommaso Ciampa came out to stare Thatcher down. Beth Phoenix said that Ciampa “has had enough of Thatcher’s bullying,” which doesn’t feel like Tommaso Ciampa at all, and we haven’t had any sort of indication that there is heat about this. Thatcher backed down, telling Ciampa that he has no problem with him. Tom Phillips turned Thatcher’s “don’t start a fight with someone you can’t beat” back around on him, which I thought was a great thing for him to do because makes Thatcher out to be a coward, but also smart (I’m sure Thatcher thinks he can beat Ciampa, but probably not when Ciampa is fresh and he has just wrestled a tough match).

MCKENZIE MITCHELL INTERVIEWS TOMMASO CIAMPA- good
She asks Ciampa why he came out to get in Thatcher’s face. Ciampa said he just wanted to fight Thatcher. Nothing about Beth Phoenix’s bullying crap.

JOHNNY GARGANO ATTACKS DAMIAN PRIEST BEFORE HIS SCHEDULED MATCH- GREAT!
Gargano attacked Priest from behind and they had a great brawl that was won by LEON RUFF when Ruff decided to get involved. I loved this! Ruff felt brave rather than feeling like he was a cowardly opportunist, and that was the key to making this work.

Kevin Owens will be on commentary next week in place of Wade Barrett.

WILLIAM REGAL VISITS BOA BECAUSE HE HASN’T COME TO WORK FOR A WEEK- fine
This was taped last night. Boa looks pretty beaten up and worried. He wouldn’t let Regal in. He said he couldn’t come to the PC and that “she is coming.” Regal asked if this mean Xia Li, who he said hadn’t been to the PC for two weeks. Boa said it wasn’t Xia, and they kept repeating “she is coming” while apologizing to Regal. They’re building up the mystery effectively, but I’m worried that the payoff won’t be good.

LEON RUFF TELLS WILLIAM REGAL HE WANTS TO FACE BOTH GARGANO & PRIEST- GREAT!

NXT WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH: Io Shiari(c) vs. Rhea Ripley- 9.5/10
HOLY F*CKING SH*T! This match was the very definition of the term “epic struggle!”

FINN BALOR’S RETURN PROMO IS INTERRUPTED BY PAT MCAFEE & FRIENDS- great!
McAfee was tremendous, as always. His group surrounded Balor, but Balor saw this coming (because McAfee ran his mouth about it earlier) and recruited some backup: UNDISPUTED ERA! We went off the air with the babyfaces running roughshod on the heels.

I can’t help but notice that there are five faces and four heels here. So either McAfee’s group going for Balor won’t be a thing yet, or Ridge Holland could be ready by War Games, and the NXT Title won’t be on the line at TakeOver. Or maybe in that case it would be Killian Dain returning to help UE while Balor defends the title? Now matter what they do, it should be pretty great.


This was an absolutely FANTASTIC episode of NXT, with lots of great storyline developments a very good undercard, and an outstanding main event. AEW upped their game this week, but NXT upped theirs even more.