-Well, hopefully Jordynne Grace is ok. She botched a dive to the outside of the ring and landed shoulder first on the ground. Looked bad, but things happen. The thing is, the match against Jaida Parker wasn’t all that compelling before that spot. The non-finish here was used to help the fatal four-way Women’s NXT Championship match make sense at Stand & Deliver, but it just doesn’t. Grace and Parker are a level below Stephanie Vaquer and Guilia right now, so shoehorning them into the title match hurts the match and the show.
Not a heel
-I don’t know that Guilia turned heel on Vaquer with that attack. She wants her title back and isn’t interested in friendships as she tries to do that. Seems to make sense. If she continues heelish attacks or cheats to win the title, then that’s different, but for now, I wouldn’t put her in that category on the roster.
-Fraxiom vs. Swipe Right was pretty damn good. It’s nearly impossible to have a bad match with Fraxiom right now, but Swipe Right held their own and featured stark and sharp characters too.
-Let’s talk about Fraxiom for a minute. That team of Nathan Frazer and Axiom together at the start was a ragtag team of two guys that had nothing else to do. They’ve run with the team, though, and forced it to be a success. They need better entrance music, but other than that, they’re a strong reason to watch NXT each week.
-Sol Ruca advanced to the Women’s North American Championship ladder match at Stand & Deliver with a win over Jazmyn Nyx this week. Ruca is a perfect talent for that kind of match, so it’s no surprise to see her in it. Nyx has a long way to go. There isn’t a character there right now and while she locked in a pretty impressive Muta Lock, she was a clear step behind her opponent in this.
Tag Team depth
-The Culling and Hank & Tank are both tag teams that exemplify the NXT brand working to build out it’s tag division. Their match was fine and The Culling won, but the teams are pretty much interchangeable at this point in terms of what they mean to the show.
-Man, Ricky Saints showed off the “it” factor this week. Nobody else on the show got the singular mic time in the middle of the ring like he did and he made the most of it. With that parade of challengers rolling out, it appears a multiple man match is on deck for Stand & Deliver. Another one. What the hell are we doing here? Look, if WWE is going to present WrestleMania weekend as the biggest of the year, the shows have to look like it. On the Stand & Deliver card, there doesn’t appear to be any strong one on one matches for championships. Zero. That’s unacceptable and even worse when he look at the WrestleMania card with it.
Promo class
-Je’Von Evans, Oba Femi, and Trick Williams each cut some effective promos this week. They were prerecorded, but they addressed the match with DarkState and at the same time, hyped their match for the NXT Championship at Stand & Deliver. All came across as likable as they prepped to team together even though they were opponents — something that isn’t a certainty when babyfaces team up together in WWE.
-Izzi Dame vs. Wren Sinclair was sloppy. Especially that finish. Neither star is ready for the ladder match at Stand & Deliver, but Dame is headed there.
Awful main event
-So, the promos from Evans, Femi, and Williams were good as I mentioned above, but for as good as they were, the main event match with DarkState was atrocious. NXT leaned into the obnoxious, “can the babyfaces coexist” storyline throughout the match. The worst part about it was, they couldn’t, and they all looked awful because of it. Plus, DarkState got the win, but didn’t really get anything at all because of how they won and the dysfunction that was prevalent on the other side. Really, really bad.
What did you think of this week’s episode of NXT? Let us know in the comments!
Subscribe to the Brass Ring Media YouTube channel HERE and 1TS YouTube channel HERE.
Become a Brass Ring Media member HERE.