NXT SEPTEMBER 12TH 2018
Ciampa was shown arriving to the arena, ignoring the questions of the camera man.
Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch vs. Adrian Jaoude and Cezar Bononi
This was Lorcan and Burch’s first match since their Takeover title challenge in June. The Brazilians got a brief period of offence in on Burch, before Oney came in and stepped things up by hitting people really hard, as he’s want to do. A nasty looking double team spike DDT pinned Jaoude.
Ciampa, with new theme music and new Tazz intro, came out. He claimed that he didn’t attack Aleister Black because somebody beat him to the punch and if he knew who had done it, he’d pat him or her on the back and say job well done. Ciampa said that even if Black had made it to Takeover, he and Gargano would have lost and he would have won, bragged about being champion some more, before telling everyone in NXT that if they wanted to be a champion then they should follow his lead. Not a lot to the promo in terms of progression, but Ciampa’s delivery is really strong.
Shayna Baszler vs. Violet Payne
This was short and violent. Baszler completely dominated with 70% of the, again, very short match being Baszler trying to bend Payne’s arm the wrong way, before stomping the elbow and tapping her out with the Kirifuda Clutch. Baszler kept the choke on a few extra seconds after the match, just cause. Considering it was basically one person contorting another person’s arm for half a minute, this was very effective.
Baszler came back post match and choked Payne out again, then choked her out a third time.
Footage was shown, being filmed by Heavy Machinery, outside the arena. As they were discussing making it their mission to find out who attacked Aleister Black and suggesting they thought it was Ciampa, Ciampa walked by in the background and confronted them. Regal appeared and told Ciampa to get to his office, saying he and Dozovic could fight another time.
Undisputed Era cut a promo under their little arch, discussing War Raiders. They accused them of sneak attacking them and mocked them for dressing like vikings, at least one of which is perfectly fair. Cole then brought up Ricochet facing Pete Dunne next week, dubbing it the Adam Cole Invitational, where the winner eventually got to defend and lose against him.
Lars Sullivan vs. Raul Mendoza
Mendoza put up a bit more of a fight than last time, hitting and moving in the early moments. Lars would dominate from that point, save for another brief bit of hope for Mendoza at the end, before Lars hit a pop up powerslam and put him away with the Freak Accident.
Recap of Dunne and Ricochet’s loss to Undisputed Era from two weeks ago. Dunne was asked about Ricochet as he arrived earlier in the day. He claimed what happened was completely Ricochet’s fault and Ricochet had been a champion for five minutes, while he was the longest reigning champion in WWE. All he had to do now was figure out how to fit two title belts in his mouth.
Cathy then interviewed Ricochet backstage. Ricochet said Pete knew he’d been put in high pressure situations long before he came to NXT and for the past 15 years. He said Pete was just another hurdle he had to leap over and it didn’t matter how long he’d been champion, which Pete would find out next week.
Short video for the Forgotten Sons.
Footage from last week, with an interview with some fans being interrupted by an arguement between Dakota Kai and Aliyah. Lacey Evans showed up and joined Aliyah’s side and Deonna showed up to defend Dakota. I have no idea what the arguement was about, but this was enough to set up a tag match next week.
Regal finished speaking with Kairi in his office, before Ohno came in to talk about what happened with Black. Regal spoke with his assistant and told Ohno he didn’t need to talk with him. Ohno seemed put out by this, but Regal explained that Kairi had just given him an alibi. Regal did bring up Ohno having a perturbed look on his face on the footage, with Ohno saying that if Regal had paid any attention to him lately he’d know he’s always perturbed, because he’d been pushed to the back of the line by all of the new hot free agents. Ohno told Regal to let him know when his new shiny toy got there and he’d take care of him, “bro”.
Bianca Belair vs. Nikki Cross
During Nikki’s entrance, they explained that apparently, Nikki had actually told Regal that all she saw was chaos and she didn’t actually see who attacked Aleister Black. Either they did a clunky job of getting that across before, or they felt the need to explain it here, but at least we know why Regal isn’t just questioning Nikki over and over. This match stemmed from that segment two weeks ago. It was fine, if unspectacular, but the crowd were into it. Nikki was extra wacky at the start of the match, which I’m not sure about. The whole “she’s crazy” character she’s got seems pretty flimsy and I’m not particularly into it. There was one really impressive spot where Belair got Cross up into a gorilla press, but they didn’t get much time to really get into things. The fight would spill outside where Nikki got Belair in a choke and Belair dropped backwards to drive Nikki onto the rampway, resulting in a double count-out. The two then brawled some more post match, ending with Nikki hitting a crossbody off the announce table onto Belair and a slew of referees. I can’t say as I’m desperate to see another match between these two, but again, the crowd were into this and the fact they didn’t crap on the non-finish says as much, so job done.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING: A squash heavy episode this week. Belair/Cross was fine and Baszler’s squash was very good for what it was, but there’s nothing to really go out of your way for.
NXT WEEK: Pete Dunne versus Ricochet, champion versus champion and Dakota and Deonna against Lacey and Aliyah.