Last week on WWE NXT:
The maybe serial killer, definitely artist joined the North American Championship title match, Dakota Kai spent the night pissing off scary women, Adam Cole yelled at some local man, Undisputed Era started another War with Imperium, and Keith Lee laid down a TikTok challenge for his title.
This Week: Did Dakota Kai live? Will Pat McAfee VirusScan get kicked in the face? Is Dexter gonna stand ominously behind someone? Is William Regal gonna let the large man and the scary man with the hourglass that everyone wants to see fight, fight each other? Let’s find out!
POP: I’m the Bad Kai, duh
We immediately begin with the #1 Contender’s match for the NXT Women’s Championship, Dakota Kai vs. Rhea Ripley. I touched on it more in detail last week, but seeing Kai go from meek babyface to…well, scrappy heel has been an interesting thing to see. The match is probably 80% Rhea Ripley dominating with Kai fighting to stay in it. She’s wrestling like an underdog for a lot of the match.
In fact, if this match existed in a vacuum (and there weren’t any shenanigans involved), one could frame this as a smaller babyface fighting to prove themselves against their larger, more dominant opponent. However, going back to the previously mentioned shenanigans, Mercedes Marinez of the Robert Stone Brand shows up to kick Rhea in the face while the ref’s back is turned which Kai takes advantage of to get the upset and become #1 Contender. We got Kai vs Shirai at This Ain’t NXT TakeOver! XXX. Great match.
POP: Mercedes-Brands
Afterwards to add insult to injury, Mercedes lays out Rhea to signal there’s a new Nightmare in town. Later, Stone confirms that they’ve got unfinished business with Rhea. You know that match is gonna be a banger.
"Rhea may be done with The #RobertStoneBrand, but the #RobertStoneBrand is 𝘯𝘰𝘵 done with Rhea." – @RobertStoneWWE
😳 #WWENXT @RealMMartinez @WWE_Aliyah @RheaRipley_WWE pic.twitter.com/fRDid1m1Di
— WWE NXT (@WWENXT) August 6, 2020
POP: Kyle’s Hat
I mean look at that thing.
POP: Every Reed Has Its Thorne
Another solid match. This one was a bit more competitive, but you knew Thicc Boi was gonna take it. Honestly I feel like I might be higher on Shane Thorne than most people and i’d really like to see him do more than just be enhancement talent.
POP: Grand Theft Dango
Ok so uh, I guess Legado del Fantasma has not chilled on kidnapping their fellow co-workers. Breezango are just minding their own business when all of a sudden they get jumped by LDF and the homie Dango gets snatched up.
So do Fashion Cops have to call the actual cops for cases like this or what?
Later in the night, LDF show back up with a still kidnapped Fandango while Santos Escobar cuts a dope heel promo about how much Lucha Libre deserves to be respected and how…Breezango playing “dress up” disrespects it somehow. Breezy comes out and instantly gets sonned by LDF and Escobar calls out Swerve (let’s hope this keeps him away from any secret MMA clubs), so looking forward to that match.
POP: Ridge Holland’s Theme Song
It’s like the theme of a 7 season FX show about the mentally tortured bouncer of an Irish Pub set during The Troubles (I know he’s English).
POP: A Priest, A Rugby Player, & A Guy From Boston Walk Into A Ring…
This match had one gear: Go. These guys just kept going at each other without ever really slowing down for too long. This was my introduction to Ridge Holland and he made one hell of a first impression (and also looks like the Stage 2 Evolution of Pat McAfee). Damien Priest is always great so you know he pulled his weight here (legit can’t think of a single Priest match I haven’t enjoyed). Oney refuses to stop throwing himself at everyone.
Priest takes it after a huge chokeslam to a huge man and a Reckoning to Lorcan. People kinda expected Holland to take it here because it was his debut, but I think Priest winning was the right move and for now, is my favorite to win the whole thing. He really has been killing it for a while now.
Dexter Is Down
Lumis got an ankle injury during the triple threat last week, so Regal decides he’s gonna have 2 singles matches made up of the (soon to be) 4 men who didn’t get pinned in the triple threat matches to decide who’s gonna be in the NXT North American Championship Match. Let’s all wish Dexter a speedy recovery.
POP: Glorious Domination
A theme that shows up in Ari Aster’s Hereditary, a damn good horror film, is that everything that happens to the family in that film is inevitable. That no matter what they said or did, they were basically passengers on a ride that outside forces they couldn’t possibly understand were controlling that sent them on a dark path.
Keith Lee vs. Cameron Grimes had a similar feeling of inevitability, because we absolutely knew that no matter what happened, Lee was putting Grimey through that mat. Now, that being said, I can’t say this was an out & out squash match. Grimey held his own. At one point he even hit a very effective Acai Moonsault on the outside that threw Lee off for a little bit. He even almost hit him with a Cave-In (for future reference Cameron, yelling the name of your move before you do it, like a DBZ character, might be a bad idea).
But once Lee reversed that attempt, it was basically over. From that point on, no matter what less boujee Heath Slater did, Lee would just swat him back down. The match ends with Lee Spirit Bomb-ing the soul out of Grimey’s body.
Afterwards Scarlett (i’m assuming) says some words in a language unknown to myself (shout out to the random PC member who yelled out “subtitles?”), to intro Kross’ snuff film. Turns out he killed a bunch of guys because Regal didn’t give him a title match. A lot of crime goes on down there at Full Sail, someone should probably call the authorities or something.
(On a serious note, I fucking love Kross’ whole presentation of his promos. I really dig the close up on his eyes videos while he grunts threats into the camera. Really cool.)
POP: Oh Captain, My Captain
Recently, Indi Hartwell got a win over Shotzi, so she’s feeling herself a little bit and thinks she can beat NXT’s Captain Marvel. They have a nice little back and forth, but it doesn’t take too long for Tegan to remind Indi who exactly she is with a relatively quick Shiniest Wizard. I think Hartwell has a ton of upside and would love to see what the future has in store for her.
BOTCH: It’s Pat
So for some reason this Pat McAffe-Undisputed Era story seems to still be going on. Good Ol’ Pat is invited by Adam Cole to join the commentary team for the final half hour of the show in order to further make up for being rightly upset with Pat for making fun of his height and the fact that he has friends (somehow a heel and face move at the same time). Yes, he stays from Indi vs. Tegan all the way through to the main event. Who doesn’t love a 4 person commentary team?
Pat spends the whole main event throwing passive aggressive shade at Adam, to the point that Beth feels so uncomfortable that she just leaves (or her disembodied voice leaves anyway) and Adam is “staring daggers” at him because he can hear him because he is literally like “less than 20 feet away” hearing him talk shit and making short jokes. All of this has an effect on…
POP: Aight, So BOOM
…the main event, Imperium vs. Undisputed Era for the NXT Tag Team Championships.
A little earlier in the night, the UE got a dope video package (scored with Imperium’s theme, love the shade) to hype up the match basically reminding everyone why they’re NXT’s top dogs.
The match itself is amazing because of course it’s amazing. You got O’Reily, Fish, Aichner and Barthel who are all tag team specialists putting on the match of the night and giving their all into it. It was also interesting because technically the UE aren’t totally faces yet (however that probably changes after tonight) so this is pretty much 2 heel tags in a title match. It’s a genuinely fun back and forth match while it lasts, however…
BOTCH: An excuse to give Pat McAfee 2 Botches
The stuff I brought up earlier with Pat and Adam leads to the UE being distracted when Adam walks over to Pat and starts yelling at him for being a dickhead and douses him with water in a Top 5 NXT moment of 2020.
The distraction leads to Imperium hitting their finish on Bobby Fish and retaining the tag titles. Afterwards Adam’s Work Dad and Secret Dad come out to separate Pat and Adam, Pat calls Adam a “bitch” and gets a cheap kick in Adam’s ribs before getting escorted out.
This appears to possibly be leading to an Adam Cole vs….Pat McAfee match which is totally what everyone wants to see I guess. Someone was asking for this probably.
On the upside, the Undisputed Era pretty much have to be babyfaces at this point so hey, something new, right? They wouldn’t put Pat McAfee over Adam Cole right? Right?
NeXT Week:
- Kushida vs. Cameron Grimes vs. ??? – NXT North American Championship Qualifying Match
- Damien Priest vs. Bronson Reed
- Karrion Kross vs. Danny Burch
