Smooth Landings
Kelani Jordan defeats Lash Legend, Sol Ruca, Michin, Jada Parker, and Fallon Henley in a Ladder Match to become the Inaugural North American Women’s Champion. By no means was this a match that stood out or was particularly memorable, but I thought it was fine given the experience of the talent in the ring. What I enjoyed the most is that the match moved at a good pace and you had everyone involved most of the time. It wasn’t one of those deals where two people are working and the rest are selling for a non-believable amount of time. Sol Ruca got a couple of cool spots with the flip off the turnbuckle into a cutter and later the ladder. I enjoyed Lash getting dumped on to the outside. During the times I’ve watched NXT regularly I always thought highly of Kelani and she looked like the winner when came out for the match. Sometimes that’s what it’s all about.
Axiom & Nathan Frazer defeat The Good Brothers (Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson) to retain the NXT Tag Team Championship. Like the first match this didn’t stand out one way or another, but I thought it was fine. You never know with NXT, but given how The Good Brothers have been pushed, I didn’t think they’d win the titles. Axiom and Frazer only won the titles back in April and in my opinion, they should hold the titles for a little while here. I thought at one point Anderson & Gallows hit a cool different version of the Magic Killer. Anderson telegraphed a kick out at one point, which brought a chuckle to me, but that was the only low point for me if you even call it a low point. I liked the finish of the modified Spanish Fly into the Phoenix Splash. Overall, it was a solid tag team title match that didn’t overstay its welcome and had the right outcome.
Lola Vice defeats Shayna Baszler in an Underground Match. I wanted to give this a rough landing because I still can’t get past these Underground matches being involved in WWE/NXT cannon. They make the wrestling matches look fake and while we know professional wrestling is choreographed, we don’t want to say it out loud. With that said, these matches are better off done in NXT than on Raw (my god were those terrible back in 2020.) This one, like the last one I personally saw (Dijak vs. Eddie Thorpe), was solid. It helped that we had two former MMA fighters. I hope Shayna is ok after her head was rammed into the steps.
Roxanne Perez defeats TNA Knockouts Champion Jordynne Grace to retain the NXT Women’s Championship. Don’t get me wrong, it’s cool to see inter-promotional matches, but I don’t watch TNA, so it doesn’t move me like it moves others. I’m quite aware of Jordynne Grace and it’s only a matter of time before she is under the auspices of WWE. They had a strong enough match, but my only issue is that Grace going after Tatum Paxley and Ash By Elegance (gotta love Vic Joseph almost calling her Dana Brooke, her former WWE persona) figured into the finish. I prefer not to have interference figuring into the first inter-promotional match, even if it is NXT vs. TNA. I understand it though, as it sets up another possible match for Grace down the line and more stories with the women involved.
Trick Williams defeats “All Ego” Ethan Page to retain the NXT Championship. This went a lot shorter than your typical NXT Championship matches, but that’s likely for the better in this case. Page let things get the better of him at the end and got defeated by the Trick Shot. I like that the ending was clean. That’s what I want to see in PLE Championship matches. Leave the angles for TV. For a quick match, I wasn’t sure if the table spot was necessary, but Trick sold it well. I like Page in NXT and Trick continues to be over.
Rough Landings
Booker T’s Commentary. I feel bad because everyone picks on this and I feel like I’m ganging up on Booker, who seems like a cool dude and nice guy if you met him in person. The problem is he just yells his “oh yeah” and spits out lines and pontificates. He doesn’t really answer Vic’s questions and doesn’t offer anything based on what’s happening in the ring at the moment. I’m normally forgiving of Booker because I get a kick out of him, but enough is enough.
Oba Femi defeats Joe Coffey and Wes Lee in a Triple Threat Match to retain the North American Championship. I didn’t like the interference by Gallus and at one point you knew the referee was getting yanked off the three-count with his foot outside the apron. That’s always annoying. Wes Lee did a lot of the heavy lifting and I enjoyed the cardiac kicks. Femi looks like a star, but let’s see some one-on-one matches if he’s going to legitimately be a star moving forward. If you want to establish him, he shouldn’t be winning matches that have interference, even if he shook off Gallus and got to them after they got involved.
Sexyy Red as the host. I don’t know Sexyy Red but that’s not the point. She didn’t do anything as the host. No one ever does. She made appearances. She congratulated Kelani Jordan and Trick Williams. That’s fine, just call her the special guest star of the evening. Give me the matches.
Closing Thoughts
This show didn’t strike me one way or another. It was a pleasant two and half hours. Nothing was bad, but nothing stood out as something I’d want to see again. This is not going to inspire me to watch NXT regularly, but if time permitted, I wouldn’t mind checking out an episode. I keep up enough to know what’s going on. If anyone stood out on the show it was Kelani Jordan, Sol Ruca, Wes Lee, and Trick Williams as he showed a more aggressive side.
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