NXT FEBRUARY 20TH 2019
Aleister Black vs. Roderick Strong
This was set up last week, when Black made a failed save for Ricochet against Undisputed Era. Strong worked the back for most of the match, after giving Black a back suplex onto the ring steps. Black would make a big comeback, until Strong got him in a torture rack on the ring apron and threw him into the post. When Strong went for End Of Heartache though, Black landed on his feet and hit Black Mass for the win. It made sense for Strong to win here, all things considered, which is a sentence I wrote assuming Strong would win. He didn’t. This was a really good match, but it suffered a bit from the late-in-the-taping crowd, who were into the match, but definitely waned here and there.
O’Reilly ran in post match and got hit with Black Mass too, before Cole and Fish jumped him. Ricochet then ran out to make the save, making this all make a little more sense.
Footage was shown from the Performance Center last week, which started with Serena Deeb and Sara Amato discussing Rachael Ellering, before Baszler, Shafir and Duke went into the locker room behind them and confronted everyone. Everyone shouted a bit, before Deeb and Amato quickly got in the middle and they left. This all went about 20 seconds and didn’t really do much to make Baszler and co look like badasses.
Belair got a promo video, saying she would be NXT Women’s Champion if the referee wasn’t down and told Shirai she wasn’t going to step aside and hand her a title shot, she’d have to wait until she was champion first.
Recap of Ricochet, Ciampa, Gargano and Black’s appearances and victories on Raw and Smackdown.
They then announced the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, starting in two weeks, with the winners facing War Raiders at Takeover on Wrestlemania weekend. The first four teams announced were Fish and O’Reilly, Aichner and Bartel, Street Profits and Forgotten Sons, with the final four announced next week.
Mia Yim vs. Xia Li
Mia has a new theme and it was played up here that she was the main one who stood up to Baszler and co at the Performance Center. Xia got a chance to look good here, before Mia won with Protect Your Neck, which is like Dillinger’s old version of the Tye Breaker. Fun little match.
Baszler, Shafir and Duke showed up post match to attack Mia. The trainees that Mia stood up for at the Performance Center ran out to try and make the save but were disposed of. Shafir and Duke then held Mia for Baszler to taunt her and hit a running knee strike.
Gargano was shown warming up backstage. Candice spoke with Johnny, before Ciampa appeared, telling Gargano that if he needed him tonight, he’d be there. Gargano told Ciampa he won the belt on his own and he didn’t need him, he had everything he needed right there. As Gargano left with Candice, Ciampa muttered that he’d be watching.
They had a sitdown interview with Riddle, conducted by Jeremy Borash. They didn’t show much of it, instead plugging that the full interview was on Youtube. The main takeaway here was that they referenced Riddle being past the Ohno feud and Riddle said his goal now was any championship he could get his hands on in NXT.
NXT NORTH AMERICAN CHAMPIONSHIP
Johnny Gargano (c) vs. Velveteen Dream
They gave this plenty of time and it meant the match started out slower, with the two trying to out-wrestle one another. Dream threw in a couple of slaps to get the upper hand early, but Gargano would end up controlling the match after tripping Dream off the top rope. This all built to them putting together a strong, back and forth finish. Dream got a big near fall with a DVD off the second rope, before Gargano rolled away as Dream teased a Purple Rainmaker, superkicked him diving to the floor and hit a suplex on the ramp. Dream kicked out of the slingshot DDT though, for a big reaction. Shortly after, Dream would then counter Gargano’s tilt a whirl Gargano Escape set-up to get him on his shoulders, hit two consecutive DVDs and the Purple Rainmaker to win the title. Ciampa was shown watching at a couple of points during the match and they showed him post match as well, seemingly happy Gargano had lost without his help.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING: Gargano and Dream was great, Strong against Black is worth watching as well and Mia versus Xia Li was solid too.
NXT WEEK: Mia Yim against Shayna Baszler.