NXT FEBRUARY 13TH 2019
Dominik Dijakovic vs. Shane Thorne
This was Thorne’s first appearance since the demise of TM61/The Mighty. He still had the same Mighty gear as last time and was still working heel. I see him taking the Buddy Murphy route to popularity and this was a good start, in as much as Buddy spent a while putting random people over on NXT before an opportunity presented itself. He’s got the quality, he just needs to show up on 205. And not be a heel. This didn’t get much of a reaction, until Dijakovic broke out a second rope moonsault escape and then a springboard corkscrew dive to the floor. Dijakovic then finished Thorne off with Feast Your Eyes.
Undisputed Era had a promo. They’ve ditched the arch, but the camera cuts and the music were still there. Cole was sick of people saying they’d had a bad start to 2019 and they wrote them off as speed bumps. They set up that it would be Fish and O’Reilly going back after the Tag Titles, leaving Strong to focus on singles gold. Cole ended by saying that they’d have all the gold in NXT in 2019 and claiming Ricochet was a flash in the pan.
Recap of Shirai pinning Baszler last week in the six woman tag, after Belair had seemingly got the pin with the KOD. Shirai was interviewed after the match and she said she was coming for the NXT Women’s Championship. Kairi began to warn Shayna, but Bianca interrupted and said she didn’t have a problem with them, but she had Shayna beat twice, so they needed to back off.
Humberto Carillo and Stacey Ervin Jr. vs. Street Profits
Ohno interrupted before this could get underway and told the crowd that they made him sick. He ragged on the crowd some more and said he was out of there, he was going somewhere where he could show that he was the best. Keith Lee then walked out behind him and laid him out with a rolling elbow, before telling Ohno it could have been worse because he could have hit him in the dangly bits like Ohno did to him and telling Ohno not to let the door hit him on the way out. Lee got to show some personality here on the mic, more-so than he has in NXT so far. No idea what the deal is with Ohno. He was apparently doing something similar on a live event. All rather strange. I guess we’ll see if he’s actually done pretty soon.
The match itself was interesting. After coming out and joining Lee in mocking Ohno, Street Profits worked the heel side here. Ervin Jr. is built a bit like Taiji Ishimori and does flips, but looked pretty green. He almost broke his neck taking a back suplex by getting folded in half too, which was unfortunate. Notable that they didn’t show a single replay. Carrillo made a comeback before setting up Ervin for a great looking moonsault. Street Profits managed to get Ervin isolated though and hit a doomsday blockbuster for the pin. This got pretty shaky at times, between Ervin’s newness and Carillo’s style clash, but they just about held it all together.
Street Profits made a case for the Tag Titles after the match, calling out War Raiders, until Aichner and Barthel interrupted and said nobody deserved the opportunity more than them. Burch and Lorcan came out and got in their faces and they all argued until War Raiders appeared. Rowe said there was an awful lot of talking and no fighting, before Hanson dared them to make a move. As they approached the ring though, Undisputed Era jumped them from behind. Undisputed Era threw them into the ring for the three waiting teams, but Hanson and Rowe fought them all off, which was a little weird since two of the teams were babyfaces. This was a bit of an odd segment all in all. Not to mention, Forgotten Sons beat Street Profits in Phoenix and were nowhere to be seen here.
We got a video on Gargano and his title win over Ricochet, as well as his Royal Rumble appearance, with some sitdown comments from Gargano.
Taynara Conti vs. Aliyah
Neither of these two have appeared on TV since October. It seemed a strange pairing then, which made a bit more sense by the end. Vanessa Borne came to ringside to watch and with Taynara seemingly in control, she grabbed Taynara’s ankle, allowing Aliyah to throw Taynara off the top rope and win with a kimura while kicking Taynara in the back of the head. Vanessa and Aliyah then celebrated together post match.
The celebration was interrupted by Baszler coming out and scaring them both off. As Borne and Aliyah celebrated having gotten away, Marina and Jessamyn then nailed them from behind and threw them back in for Shayna. Marina and Jessamyn hit a double team move on Vanessa and Baszler gave Taynara a tilt a whirl slam. Shayna then warned everyone do not get in their way, do not question them and do not piss them off.
Velveteen Dream got his own promo, ala Gargano’s, focusing on the Worlds Collide tournament and him choosing to challenge Gargano, as they built up to him against Gargano next week.
Adam Cole vs. Ricochet
As you’d expect this was a good main event. Cole spent much of the match working Ricochet’s knee, which hampered Ricochet late in the match, with the knee preventing him from hitting certain moves at a couple of points despite him getting back into it. This lead up to Ricochet hitting a one legged springboard senton, which unfortunately hit Cole in the ankles and took a bit of the drama away from the pin, but Nigel explained away. After a big exchange of strikes, the finish saw Ricochet hit a rana off the top, a big axe kick, the deadlift suplex he tried earlier in the match and the Vertigo, all in succession, to get the win.
The rest of Undisputed Era attacked Ricochet after the match, with Aleister Black trying to make the save, but getting hit with End Of Heartache by Strong. Undisputed Era ended the show standing tall, so presumably this sets up Strong and Black as a way to re-establish Strong as a singles guy.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING: A very eventful show, with all the pre and post match attacks. The main event was the one match that stood out, but there was a lot of stuff happening on the rest of the show.
NXT WEEK: Gargano versus Velveteen Dream for the North American Championship.