This week’s NXT has come and gone and here are my thoughts…
Ruby Riot (with Nikki Cross) vs. Iconic Duo
Nikki’s name is put in parentheses because she slipped into participation in the middle of what seemed originally a handicap match between Riot and Billie Kay/Peyton Royce, helping Riot pick up a win after Nikki hit her patented fisherman’s neckbreaker on Billie Kay, allowing Riot to ascend the top turnbuckle to deliver a swanton on Kay’s already prone body.
Although it would have been a more outside the box idea to have Riot find a surprise partner from the recently concluded Mae Young Classic, such as Toni Storm, Candice LeRae or even the eventual winner Kairi Sane, putting in Cross was rational for booking in the sense that it helps build on existing storylines. Why did Nikki Cross decide to suddenly help her long standing rival Ruby Riot? Considering that she’s supposed to be off her rocker, who knows what is supposedly going through Cross’ mind.
Speaking of the women’s division, for the second week in a row NXT general manager William Regal has been left saying he has some serious thinking to do in terms of coming up with a way to crown a new NXT women’s champion now that Asuka has moved on from NXT to the main roster. While to some the answers may seem obvious, the hesitancy to flesh out a process to crown a new champion on Regal’s part is understandable.
For two years Asuka’s the only champion NXT has ever seen. There is no immediate contender for the vacant crown, except perhaps Kairi Sane who was announced she would be competing for the women’s title down the road. My suggestion would be to host another 30 or so women’s tournament to crown the new titleholder, sprinkling in current NXT roster members, MYC participants…and maybe even a few surprises as well.
The Emergence of In House Trained Talent
One of the main criticisms of NXT as a developmental system has been, in recent years, bringing in talent from other promotions in order to adapt them to the so-called WWE style before moving them to the main roster. Bobby Roode, Samoa Joe, Shinsuke Nakamura, Drew McIntyre and now this new stable of Adam Cole, Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly (although Cole is more likely to move to the main roster than the other two in my humble opinion). These were all guys that have wrestled for years already before coming to the Performance Centre and to NXT before moving onto the main roster.
The Performance Centre was designed to train the next generation of in-house WWE, people that did not have a prior wrestling background and training them from the ground up in NXT for wrestling. Baron Corbin, a former Golden Gloves boxing champion and offensive lineman for the Arizona Cardinals, fits that bill, but since him there hasn’t been anyone else that was trained by NXT that made a splash in the rest of the company, or even within NXT itself. But to me, this week’s NXT shows that is starting to change.
Like Corbin, Riddick Moss and Tino Sabbatelli were former professional football players who first got into wrestling by signing with NXT. While Moss may have lost to Johnny Gargano this week, he and Sabbatelli are one of the few newest tag teams around NXT, and they definitely have that look that the WWE brass likes of big strong guys who work out and play the part of “monied” individuals. Good to see that they’re not just working NXT house shows.
The same goes for teams like the Street Profits and the Ealy Brothers, who had a decently entertaining tag match, as well as this Lars Sullivan, who as recently shown is not a very good tag team partner but can demolish three guys in a 3 on 1 handicap match. Even just a few months ago, these guys, as well as others, sounded like they belonged more in an NXT live event or house show, not on the Network. But that’s where we saw them this week, and I hope they keep them there, to exemplify what the purpose of the Performance Centre is supposed to be about.
More Factions?
We’ve seen the Shield. We’ve seen the Wyatt Family and we’ve seen Sanity. The common thread linking these factions that have graced the halls of NXT is that there is always three in the group. The New Day are billed as a tag team, but in that sense you could call them a faction as well, since the Shield functioned as such when they were together in the WWE.
With the arrival of “The Undisputed Era”, “CFO” or whatever it is they’re calling themselves, and the way they started at Takeover Brooklyn by laying out Sanity, we may be seeing a faction rivalry take place on a brand not seen since the Shield feuded with the Wyatts on the main roster. If you consider that the UK competitors might forged a minor alliance of their own that mixes things up a little bit. After CFO jumped Wolfgang upon the conclusion of the WWE UK Title match with Pete Dunne, Trent Seven and Tyler Bate came out to assist Wolfgang to the back. Seven and Bate challenged Fish and O’Reilly to a tag team match on NXT next week for “attacking our guys”, so there will be a continuation of hostilities between the CFO and the UK wrestlers.
The only disappointing thing is that the UK faction appears to be Seven, Bate and Wolfgang, instead of Pete Dunne. On the indies, Seven, Bate and Dunne are known as “British Strong Style”, a very popular faction on the UK wrestling scene. Turning Dunne face on WWE television may not work, as his heel persona is excellent with the silence, no smiling, joint manipulating fiend he’s playing is working well with the crowds. But he’s over enough with the crowds at this point, and with CFO attacking Dunne as well, that may have planted the seeds for a future alliance of the current UK talent against CFO, as if the latter didn’t have to deal with Sanity already.
Those were my thoughts on this week’s NXT. What did you think of the show?
An average professional doing the 9-5 grind who really loves wrestling across all platforms. Here's hoping wrestlers finally get some basic workers rights in 2021.
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