-I can’t say that Axiom & Nathan Frazer are credible opponents for tag team champions, Bron Breakker & Baron Corbin. It would be silly to do that. I can say that they will fly around the ring and bump for Breakker & Corbin better than anyone on the NXT roster right now, though. That’s why they are in this match. The Stand & Deliver crowd is going to want to see The Wolfdogs do their thing and both Frazer and Axiom can help them accomplish it. Doesn’t say much for them as a team, but says a lot about The Wolfdogs. The Breakker/Corbin pairing isn’t going to last long, so it’s smart to feature it while you can.
A Hail vs. Jayne teaser
-It’s good to see the Thea Hail vs. Jacy Jayne feud get a little juice at Stand & Deliver. After all, it’s been a central story on NXT each week for nearly a year in some capacity. I don’t think Hail vanquishes Jayne here, but the six-woman tag scenario allows for Hail and company to lose, while also keeping the Hail vs. Jayne singles match a reality.
-I’ll take “ways to bury Von Wagner for $300,” please? My goodness. Von Wagner is doing jobs to Lexis King? Really? Look, Wagner has proved to have a low ceiling when it comes to being a big man in WWE. That said, losing to Lexis King is the kiss of death. King has failed at every turn since his big debut, so the optics are terrible here. Yikes.
-Lola Vice vs. Karmen Petrovic was better than it had any right to be. Short, but a clear sign of progress and development for both women.
Thank you Lyra
-A pretty good final promo segment between Lyra Valkyria and Roxanne Perez this week. It was absolutely the best Perez has looked as a heel. Still, it’s a tough putt to sink and likely will continue to be even as she becomes champion again. Valkyria showed some really strong fire opposite Perez and did a nice job of articulating why Perez had a messed up view of what being champion was. It was that perspective that very much helped Perez come across as a heel — more than Perez herself. Good stuff.
-Couldn’t you have done the Shawn Spears post-match attack on Gacy after he lost to Oba Femi? I mean we aren’t trying to protect Gacy anymore. The Gacy vs. Femi match was bizarre due to Gacy playing from so far behind. Commentary could have done a better job at reminding the audience that Gacy is crazy, which was why he continued wrestling even while destroyed physically. Frankly, they needed to because the match didn’t make sense. Femi continues to look and present himself as a star in the making.
-Umm, Wren Sinclair chopped Arianna Grace into oblivion during their match together. It’s worth going out of your way to find this. It’s that nasty. A fine little match and smart to get Grace a win as she holds down the makeover story with Gigi Dolin — or Georgina.
Not the “hit” Tony D’Angelo was looking for
-Ok, what were we doing during that Ilja Dragunov and Tony D’Angelo segment, NXT? This was beyond hokey and while D’Angelo tried to sell the environment as dangerous and uncertain, Dragunov didn’t. This hurt the entire aura of what they were trying to present. On one hand, bad Ilja! On the other, it’s smart to jump off a sinking ship. Dragunov would have looked Seth Rollins selling for The Fiend silly had he been triggered at all by D’Angelo’s secret headquarters. A mess of a final angle.
-Sol Ruca vs. Blair Davenport had a match worthy of the 10 minutes it got, but wasn’t anything special either. Davenport took most of the match, so Ruca had to show extra range in there. She didn’t miss, but it wasn’t a home run. Like Vice and Petrovic earlier in the night, this match showed true development.
Big players, played big
-Carmelo Hayes and Trick Williams both were excellent in their final face-to-face before fighting in the main event of Stand & Deliver this weekend. More than anything, they were authentic. Their words and body language toward the other was that of angry and bitter family members and both were able to articulate their own truth about the reason the relationship between them went sour. In the end, Williams needed to be the more sympathetic figure and he was by calling out Hayes for lying about what happened between them. The audience knew it and correctly sided with Trick. The brawl at the end was wrestling 101. This worked tremendously well as the go-home segment for Stand & Deliver. The big players played big. Thumbs way up.
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