NXT JANUARY 16TH 2019
Street Profits vs. The Metro Brothers
Squash win for the Profits, with Montez winning with a big frog splash. The story here wasn’t the match, but Forgotten Sons jumping Street Profits during their celebration. Ryker specifically was the one who laid both guys out, which I’m sure isn’t a coincidence, with Blake and Cutler hitting their finish to Dawkins to end the attack.
Cathy interviewed Riddle, who was with Keith Lee. Riddle said he wasn’t cleared medically so he couldn’t be in Lee’s corner tonight, but he was just hoping Keith left some of Ohno for him.
Aleister Black green screen promo on Ciampa, saying he’d take the title back at Takeover, but suggesting to Ciampa they start the fight early next week.
Belair came out for a promo on Baszler and the NXT Women’s Title, which ended up bringing out Baszler, Jessamyn and Marina. Baszler put her over as an athlete, but said she clearly wasn’t the smartest, because no matter how strong her arms were she was going to tear them off at Takeover. Belair disagreed and Baszler tried to provoke a fight, claiming she’d change Belair’s vocabulary from undefeated to overrated. She backed off Jessamyn and Marina saying they were the least of her worries, but that gave Belair a chance to slap Baszler and escape the ring. I thought Baszler was really strong again here.
Dominik Dijakovic vs. Adrian Jaoude
They worked parts of this a little differently, because of Jaoude’s unique style. It didn’t really get a reaction from the crowd and this wasn’t a great match, but it was interesting to see them play into Jaoude’s background a bit rather than doing a regular squash. Dijakovic ended up taking over and did his thing, winning with the Feast Your Eyes.
They did a promo for War Raiders, where they were in an empty field all dressed up in whatever it is they’re supposed to be and burned a plinth with the Undisputed Era’s branded steel chairs on them. I’m not that into the whole War Raiders psuedo-viking thing they’ve got going on, so seeing them lean into it ahead of their big Tag Title match isn’t really what I wanted. I’m sure someone thought this made for some cool visuals, but I just found it a bit silly.
Recap of NXT UK Takeover.
Johnny Gargano vs. Humberto Carrillo
It seemed like Carrillo and Raul Mendoza were going to get a run as a tag team on NXT, but I guess that’s up in the air now he’s shown up on 205 Live, which wasn’t mentioned here. He got to look good here in a pretty competitive match, which may or may not have been his farewell match in that case. Gargano ended up getting the win with the slingshot DDT, heading into his match with Ricochet, but Carrillo got plenty here on his way up/out. Gargano dared Ricochet to show up next week after the match
Ciampa promo. He told Black they were going to wait until Takeover, because that’s what a main event player does and told Black to be careful what he wished for.
The same Velveteen Dream video from a few weeks ago aired, with him talking about 2019 being his year.
Keith Lee vs. Kassius Ohno
Lee’s run on NXT so far doesn’t feel like it’s taken off yet. He’s been fine and the crowd do like him, but he really hasn’t done much, which I guess might change now spots are open. However, tonight, he was Matt Riddle’s Friend. Lee got to show what he could do here, either side of Ohno controlling the match in the middle. Ohno is the one who’s in a feud right now though, which meant Ohno shoved Lee into the referee and hit a low blow as Lee checked on him, before hitting a rolling elbow to win the match. This was merely fine.
Riddle came out post match with referees trying to hold him back, but Ohno got out of the ring before Riddle could get to him.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING: Nothing much to see this week. A couple of fine matches, but nothing more.
NXT WEEK: A Velveteen Dream appearance, a Johnny Gargano appearance and presumably an Aleister Black appearance too.