NXT NOVEMBER 7TH 2018
Heavy Machinery vs. The Forgotten Sons
You can tell Blake and Cutler are in the ‘eager to impress’ stage, because they were working at a frenetic quick pace the whole way, even when they were just working over Tucker’s arm. Heavy Machinery kept up with them and they crammed a bunch of nearfalls into the finishing stretch of what I was expecting to be a fairly simple match, but over-delivered. Tucker got to kick out of a couple of big double team moves, before knocking Cutler off the top onto Ryker on the floor, who hadn’t gotten involved all match, allowing Dozovic to pin Blake with a pop-up World’s Strongest Slam. Plenty of effort on display here. Would assume the finish leads to a more prolonged feud here.
Recap of Candice confronting Nikki last week and Black then confronting Candice. Candice was questioned about the issue when she arrived at the Performance Center earlier in the day, but dodged the question and said she had questions of her own for Nikki, so she was going to ask Regal for a match so Nikki couldn’t avoid her.
Cathy interviewed Shayna, who was again with Jessamyn and Marina. Cathy asked about Kairi’s rematch clause and Shayna asked how many times she’d have to beat her down before people realised how insignificant she was. Shayna pointed out she was the first two-time NXT Women’s Champion, before Regal interrupted and confirmed the rematch with Kairi for Takeover, in a 2 out of 3 falls match.
Dakota Kai vs. Taynara Conti
This was solid, although they didn’t get much from the crowd. I thought they worked well together and it was probably Conti’s best outing on NXT. Conti would target the arm, but Kai would end up getting the win with the over the back backstabber, which is now called the Kairopractor because everyone likes puns.
Cathy interviewed Mia Yim. Mia talked up being in NXT until the inevitable interruption to set up a match. Belair was the one to interrupt and she at least had a good reason, pointing out she’d been there for two years and they should be talking about her being undefeated, not about Mia. Mia said this wasn’t her problem, but Bianca hadn’t beaten her.
Recap of Riddle’s debut win last week. They then showed the video from WWE.com, with Riddle and Lee celebrating, but running into Ohno, who said he liked breaking shiny new toys.
Hype video for War Games.
Gargano sent in a video, explaining why he attacked Black. The video was him walking back across a bridge, to the point where he laid Black out. Essentially, Gargano attacked him because he was in the way of him being the one to beat Ciampa. He insisted he was the good guy and everyone freaked out because he did one bad thing, but sometimes you had to fight a little dirty. He said he wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore and he was actually starting to like it. Still not keen on him being a heel now.
Regal announced a match next week to decide who got the man advantage in War Games.
Velveteen Dream vs. Lars Sullivan
As impressive as these two have been, I didn’t have particularly high hopes for a match between the two. It turned out fine, but did feel like an odd pairing at times. It maybe doesn’t help that Dream didn’t really turn babyface, he just became one all of a sudden EC3 style. They got off to a hot start on the floor and Dream bumped his ass off, so in that sense it worked. There were a few Lars nerve holds which slowed things down considerably in the middle, but they picked things up well down the stretch and got the crowd back. Ciampa would appear as Dream was closing in on victory, with Dream jumping to the floor to wipe him out. Dream then rolled back into the ring, Sullivan hit the Freak Accident and won. So presumably it’s a three way at Takeover now? If not, Lars ought to be pissed.
Ciampa attacked and berated Dream after the match. Dream was able to counter a move onto the belt though, hitting Ciampa with the Shell Shock DDT onto it instead. Referees would run out to prevent Dream from hitting the elbow off the top, but Dream managed to break away to hit it, ending the show posing with the title. I guess no three way then.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING: Three fine matches and some fine build for Takeover. If you watch it, great, if you don’t, you don’t miss anything essential.
NXT WEEK: Mia Yim against Bianca Belair and one member of Undisputed Era against one member of Team Ricochet.