NXT JULY 17TH 2019
Matt Riddle vs. Arturo Ruas
After impressing on the EVOLVE show at the weekend, this was probably a good time to have another Ruas match air. As you’d expect this was a very MMA inspired match, to the point that I’m pretty sure everything they did could have been seen in an MMA fight. The finish was also straight out of MMA too, with Riddle landing the Final Flash knee and then ground and pounding Ruas for the stoppage, which really isn’t my favourite finish in pro wrestling, but when in Rome I guess.
Post match, as Riddle was celebrating, a masked Killian Dain jumped Riddle and put a prolonged beatdown on him. It ended with Dain giving Riddle a senton that put them both through a conspicuous trap door on the stage, which was probably a bit much.
Street Profits cut a promo on Fish and O’Reilly wanting a shot at them, pointing out that they didn’t beat them in the ladder match where they won the titles.
Footage was shown from last Saturday at a live event, with Mia attacking Marina in her car and hitting her with the car door.
NXT BREAKOUT TOURNAMENT ROUND 1
Dexter Lumis vs. Bronson Reed
Lumis didn’t get a sitdown interview, but Reed did. Lumis is really, really good at looking creepy and his entrance was certainly memorable. The match itself was solid, slower paced overall but had it’s moments and was maybe the second most effective of the first round matches in terms of introducing new characters. Reed got the win with a big splash off the top, but Lumis’s personality was such that Reed wasn’t really the focus until then. It’s a cliche thing to say and not usually a compliment, but I’m sure Vince would see big things in Lumis.
Breeze was shown at a photoshoot earlier in the day and was interviewed by Cathy about how he planned to bounce back. Breeze pointed out that everyone in NXT seemed to have friends watching their back, so he needed to adapt. Forgotten Sons confronted him, saying it wasn’t the old NXT. Breeze wasn’t intimidated, acknowledging that he remembered Blake and Cutler and jokingly asking Gunner “weren’t you Buddy Murphy”. Blake warned Breeze he’d never seen a man like Ryker before, but Breeze said he’d seen everything. This seems like a bit of a step back for Forgotten Sons, who are nowhere near the Tag Title picture judging by the past few weeks, especially when Breeze is scoring jokes on the previously protected Ryker and getting away with it.
Recap of Io Shirai’s comments from last week.
KUSHIDA vs. Apollo Crews
Crews got a big reaction for his surprise, to the crowd at least, return. These two had a really fun, even match, with the crowd behind both guys. Crews got a couple of close near falls towards the end, before KUSHIDA got the clean win, after an impressive armbar takedown off the top, which he turned into the Sakuraba Lock for the submission. They shook hands afterwards, as well as before the match.
Cathy interviewed Keith Lee. Lee talked about hearing that opportunities would be laid at his feet before he got to NXT, but he’d been looked over and passed by. He brought up the Breakout Tournament, which he didn’t get a shot at when he arrived and now everyone was talking about Damian Priest. Lee said he was going to change the narrative and show it was him and not Priest who everyone should be talking about. I don’t know if Lee was supposed to be hinting at a heel turn here or not, but it’s possible that’s what they were going for.
Adam Cole came out for the main event and what was supposed to be his first NXT Title defence. He claimed the past few weeks he’d been showing what a true champion was and there was an undisputed power switch happening in NXT. Cole then announced his opponent, showing the clip of Gargano giving one of the wrestlers he visited in Cleveland the NXT Title, before bringing that guy out, Tuan Tucker. Cole told Tucker that there was no Undisputed Era, it was just them and patronised him a little, before Tucker said it was too bad it was just them, because he didn’t come alone. Gargano then came out to brawl with Cole instead, with Cole trying to escape and Gargano fighting him through the crowd. Referees eventually came out to restrain Gargano, with Gargano shrugging them off and hitting a big dive off the stage onto Cole as he posed with the title and taking the fight back to the ring, where he tapped Cole out with the Gargano Escape. Gargano then signalled that he wanted a third match as he left and I’m guessing this was to set up some kind of No DQ, Falls Count Anywhere kind of stip for that.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING: A good show this week, with KUSHIDA and Crews the standout match and everything else delivering, in ring and out. Lumis’s debut and Dain’s return are presumably going to be important for the show going forward and the closing angle sets up the main event of the next Takeover, but everything seemed to have a solid purpose this week.
NXT WEEK: Io Shirai versus Kacy Catanzaro.