Bailey and Becky Lynch fight for the #1 Contendership for the NXT Women’s Championship, Finn Balor is in action, Baron Corbin gets a surprise challenge for Takeover: Brooklyn and more in this week’s NXT Report…
We open on WWE.com exclusive with some unnamed dork interviewing William Regal about Kevin Owens’ challenge for a ladder match against Finn Balor. Regal says that he doesn’t want to give him the match because he won’t bow down to his demands, but he’s spoken with Finn Balor and Balor wants the match. Regal puts over how dangerous the match is, which is awesome and missing from the main roster. He makes the match official for NXT Takeover: Brooklyn.
1. Solomon Crowe vs. Tye Dillinger
The commentators compare Solomon Crowe to a Gremlin, which was pretty funny. Dillinger is finally doing his Perfect 10 gimmick on TV, which the commentators explain pretty well. This match was here to showcase the gimmick. They do some chain wrestling early on, and Dillinger hits a snapmare to reiterate his Perfect 10 gimmick by leading the crowd in chants. It’s odd that Dillinger is the heel, but seems to be the most popular man in the ring. Crowe whips Dillinger into the ropes and does a drop down, which trips Dillinger up. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a drop down take someone out. Dillinger takes control after Crowe misses a running charge into the corner. Crowd dies down during the heat, to almost deathly silence. Dillinger pulls down his kneepads – presumably to set up his new finish. They pick up a bit when Crowe makes his comeback. Crowe spills to the outside hard, but when he gets back in Dillinger hits him with his new finish, where he drops his opponent’s face into his exposed knee, for the win. He leads the crowd in Perfect 10 chants.
2. Baron Corbin vs. Alex Tischer
Fun fact: Axel Tischer has just had a name change. Oh, and Corbin wins in a matter of seconds with the End of Days to a chorus of boos and boring chants. After the match, he cuts a promo about how no one can beat him. Steve Cutler runs from the back and gets an End of Days for his troubles. Corbin picks up the mic again and repeats his point. And then Samoa Joe’s music hits. Joe says that Corbin’s path of destruction is impressive, but he won’t do that to him. Corbin responds by saying he can and will. Joe then challenges Corbin to a fight right now. Corbin, brilliantly, replies by saying he’s just fought two men so he won’t accept his challenge right now. He then sucker punches Joe and starts a beatdown. He sets him up for the End of Days, but Joe reverses into a Coquina Clutch and puts Corbin out. Surprising that they’ve already shown Corbin knocked out, when surely that’s the payoff? They play Joe’s music to a chorus of “thank you Joe”.
We get another Bull Dempsey training montage. This one was much quicker than previous vignettes, and it looks like Dempsey is improving. It ends with the title card “Iron Strengthens Iron”. Whatever that means.
Backstage, Tyler Breeze cuts a promo on Jushin “Thunder” Liger. He says he will put Liger out just as he did with Hideo Itami. He bids Liger “domo arigato”.
3. Marcus Louie vs. Finn Balor
The crowd is surprisingly dead during this match. It was probably because he was facing Marcus Louie, but the crowd is deathly silent. Louie is given a large amount of offense to show off his strength, and Balor sells his attacks. But Balor makes a comeback with his usual set of moves. He kicks Louie into the corner and hits the Coup de Grace for the win. After the match, Kevin Owens hits a surprise attack on Balor and goes for the powerbomb into the ring apron. Balor reverses though and hits a dropkick which sends Owens through the guardrail. Balor throws Owens back into the ring and goes for his corner dropkick, but Owens reverses it into a delayed Pop-Up Powerbomb. That was so awesome.
Backstage, The Vaudevillains are talking about “The Bliss Factor” getting in the way of their title match against Blake & Murphy at Takeover. They say they have a plan to remove her, but Bliss walks in and mocks them for being big strong men who have to take care of “little old me”. She slaps both of them and walks off.
We get the same hype video for Apollo Crews we got last week, and they use this to hype the card for NXT Takeover: Brooklyn. It’s a really great card.
4. Bailey vs. Becky Lynch for the NXT Women’s Champion #1 Contender
Sasha Banks is out for commentary. These three girls are the most over people on the whole show. This was awesome – and a long match that went through two segments. Some great back and forth action in the early goings with neither girl getting the advantage. Sasha is doing okay on commentary too, and she’s putting over both girls as well as herself – although she is very robotic and monotone at times. Becky gains control by focusing on the arm of Bailey to set up her submission. Crowd is super crazy into this main event. Everytime Bailey makes a comeback, Becky cuts her off by going back to the arm. Back from the break, Becky is still in control. Bailey attempts a one-armed comeback, but is cut off again. She finally gains some momentum after Becky misses her running legdrops and she knocks her down with several elbows and running strikes. This is tremendous action. Bailey gets Becky up on the top rope and hits a powerslam, which was pretty cool. But from out of nowhere, Becky locks in the Disarmer submission – forcing Bailey to make it to the ropes. Becky drags her into the centre of the ring and goes for another suplex, but Bailey fights out to chants of “this is wrestling” from the crowd. Bailey goes for the Bailey-to-Belly, but its reversed into an Disarmer attempt by Becky, but Bailey reverses that into a Schoolgirl of Death for the victory. After the match, Sasha stood on the announcer’s desk holding the title, as Bailey shouts at her from the ring.
This was a really good edition of NXT. The Samoa Joe/Baron Corbin segment was really cool, but bizarre in its booking choices. The Bailey/Lynch match was a real show-stealer, but then it was the only ‘real’ match on the card.
Luke Owen is the Deputy Editor of Flickering Myth and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.
