NXT Review 5/1/19: KUSHIDA vs. Ohno

NXT MAY 1ST 2019

Humberto Carrillo, Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch vs. The Forgotten Sons
This came about after last week’s Carrillo versus Ryker match, where Lorcan and Burch saved Carrillo from Ryker’s attack in the crowd. For the most-part, I thought this was a pretty strong match, worked at a decent pace, with Forgotten Sons working well together. The key moment was Ryker pushing Blake out of the way of a Carrillo suicide dive and Lorcan being taken out instead. Forgotten Sons then had the numbers advantage, first on Burch, then on Burch and Carrillo. It got a little messy at the end for some reason and the finish, a triple team version of Blake and Cutler’s reverse DDT/middle rope stomp was better in theory than execution. Shaky last 30 seconds or so aside, this was solid though.

Cathy was shown trying to question Shayna about attacking Kairi and Io recently. Baszler cockily said she had no sympathy, but when Cathy pointed out that Io had pinned Shayna and Shayna had never beaten Io, Baszler slapped the microphone out of her hand.

Footage was shown from the Performance Center, with Belair confronting Mia about mentioning her defeats to Shayna in passing last week. Stokely was also filming all of this on his phone in the background and they did draw attention to it, so whether that’s anything of note or just a thing to subtely introduce the idea of Stokely, I don’t know.

Dominik Dijakovic vs. Mansoor
Dijakovic immediately went for the rolling big boot, which he won with two weeks ago, but Mansoor avoided it and put up a fight for a minute or so. Then, Dijakovic caught him on a crossbody and threw him out of the ring, which almost ended badly with Mansoor’s legs hitting the guardrail, but did mean the crowd got behind Mansoor for the rest of the match. Mansoor made a bit of the comeback at the end and got a close near fall with an enziguri after jumping off of Dijakovic’s knee, but Dijakovic regrouped and won with the burning hammer into the knee strike.

Post match, Velveteen Dream interrupted Dijakovic’s celebration, being wheeled out onto the stage on his couch. Dream sang his own version of the American national anthem, before being wheeled back off stage, which was interesting.

Recap of Gargano’s win over Strong last week, thanks to the miscue from Adam Cole caused by Matt Riddle. Undisputed Era then had a promo talking about Cole’s match next week with Riddle. They seemed to be on the same page, until Cole said Strong dropped the ball last week and Strong stormed off. Cole claimed it was a joke, but Fish said his timing was awful and went off to talk with Strong. O’Reilly meanwhile stuck with Cole and took his side.

Kassius Ohno vs. KUSHIDA
This was a fun first outing for KUSHIDA. It was more of a competitive match than just a showcase for KUSHIDA, which is how NXT tends to have done debuts over the years and has it’s downsides. Ohno certainly got the chance to look good here too, but the crowd were already into KUSHIDA, so he didn’t really lose anything from being on the wrong end of some near falls like some would. KUSHIDA ended up with a busted nose from an electric chair drop midway through the match and Ohno got the closest near fall, countering KUSHIDA’s handspring elbow with an elbow of his own. KUSHIDA fought back to win though, obviously, with the Hoverboard Lock.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING: KUSHIDA and Ohno is worth checking out and the other two matches on the show were both good. An easy watch.

NXT WEEK: Mia Yim versus Bianca Belair and Matt Riddle against Adam Cole.