NXT JUNE 27TH 2018
Aleister Black came out to open the show. Black talked about how dealing with adversity defined you as a champion and making Lars Sullivan fade to black, before being interrupted by Ciampa appearing on the stage. Ciampa claimed he didn’t buy Black and the title was making him, not the other way around. He said Black barely made it through Lars, while he beat Gargano with his hands tied behind his back and now it was time to focus on business. Black said if Regal made the match he’d kick his lights out, while Ciampa said Black would lose more than his title when they faced off, he’d lose his mystique as well and all he needed was one moment to make his title reign fade to black.
Pictures were shown of Lars’s broken jaw, which he apparently had for half of the match with Black at Takeover.
Vanessa Borne was interviewed outside the Performance Center and wanted to know why Kairi dresses as a pirate. Seems like a fair question to me. She didn’t get why people admired Kairi instead of her and after she took Kairi out, she’d be on all the posters and t-shirts instead.
Kona Reeves vs. Max Humberto
Squash win for Reeves. He looked a lot more assured here than he did in his debut and there’s clearly something there with him. It was kept simple, but at this point that’s okay. He won with the Hawaiian Drop.
Bate and Seven’s NXT Tag Title win at Royal Albert Hall was covered briefly.
Candice LaRae vs. Lacey Evans
Gargano’s condition wasn’t used as a big factor or story here, as it has been with Candice before. It was brought up on commentary, but she wasn’t selling it, the way she was against Bianca a few weeks ago. Lacey worked Candice’s arm before Candice made a one-armed comeback. She hit an Unprettier and followed up with a really nice Lionsault to get the win, in surprisingly decisive fashion considering Evans’s recent push. Solid match.
Gargano was subsequently interviewed by Cathy backstage. Johnny said Candice was his favourite wrestler, but it was a little hard to focus because he was thinking about what happened at Takeover Chicago over and over. Gargano said Ciampa didn’t get to win and this was far from over. They had one win a-piece, so he was going to speak to Regal about them doing it one more time and this ended when Ciampa did.
Heavy Machinery cut a selfie promo while having a barbecue, saying they weren’t done with The Mighty and it was no more fun and games.
A tweet from Regal was shown, saying that Gargano needed to move on from Ciampa, so he’d face EC3 next week.
Cathy interviewed Candice after her match. Candice said she’d made the mistake before of letting Gargano’s problems distract her from her dream and while she was concerned, she had to worry about herself and her goal and nothing was going to stop her going after the NXT Women’s Championship.
Moustache Mountain were supposed to be in action, against Dave Dixon and Carl Axelrod. The fact Dixon and Axelrod got an entrance and a titantron seemed weird to me. They then promptly got attacked from behind by Undisputed Era, so that explained that pretty swiftly. Both guys got thrown off the stage, before O’Reilly called their title win a fluke and claimed they only won because they were held up by their country. Undisputed Era surrounded the ring, but Ricochet ran out to even the odds and set up a six-man.
Undisputed Era vs. Moustache Mountain and Ricochet
As you’d expect, a really strong main event between these six. Moustache Mountain and Ricochet dominated early on, giving Undisputed Era the runaround, until a referee distraction and a kick from the outside by Cole lead to them cutting off Bate. Ricochet made a big comeback on all three, before getting caught in a guillotine by O’Reilly and having to tag Seven to escape. Undisputed Era isolated Seven from tagging and the match broke down, leaving Cole in with Seven. Seven hit a lariat to intercept Cole’s running knee though and tagged Ricochet. After a big sequence between all six, O’Reilly and Strong won battles on the apron to take out Moustache Mountain. Ricochet backflipped out of a high/low though, got rid of O’Reilly and Strong, before hitting Cole with a 630 that I was sure was the finish, but instead, O’Reilly pulled Cole out of the pin and pulled a big ol’ face when he got caught.
After Ricochet took out O’Reilly, Strong gave him an End Of Heartache onto the apron, throwing him back in for Cole, who picked up the cheap win. Presumably, this will still lead to a Ricochet/Cole North American Title match down the line. The crowd started fairly subdued, just in general, but were really brought into this as the match went on.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING: Definitely check out the six man tag main event. Candice and Lacey was a solid match and the Ciampa/Black interaction was pretty good as well, but the main event was the one standout of the show for sure.
NXT WEEK: Johnny Gargano against EC3.