NXT Review: 04/11
- Linus O'Howell
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
The Culling and Lola Vice VS Fatal Influence
This week’s edition of NXT kicked off with a 6-Woman Tag Team Match as Lola Vice teamed up with The Culling to take on Fatal Influence! Lola and Tatum Paxley were having quite a lot of fun together, but Izzi Dame certainly wasn’t impressed! All of their “fun” went a little bit too far, too, with Fatal Influence being able to take control of the action! Izzi managed to use her power to fight off Fallon Henley and Lainey Reid, but eventually, Dame got knocked out by a Rolling Encore as Jacy Jayne picked up the win for her team! It’s never good when Fatal Influence win tag matches; it just means they’re going to lose in their next Championship bout!
Grade: B-
Kelani Jordan Promo, El Grande Americano VS Josh Briggs, Ricky Saints and Trick Williams’ Sit-Down Interview
Josh Brigggs wasn’t happy with El Grande Americano touching his stuff, before Wren Sinclair announced that she will be entering the NXT Women’s Speed Championship Tournament! Kelani Jordan then stormed past on her way down to the ring, and what we got next was one of the best Heel promos in a while! Kelani rightly pointed out that when Dominik Mysterio or Cody Rhodes cheat to win, they get cheered, whilst she was booed for her actions against Jordynne Grace last week! Jordan also brought up how everyone is angry at her for appearing on TNA as an NXT Superstar, whilst everyone seems delighted whenever Lola Vice appears in AAA! The best Heels are the ones that speak the truth, and everything that Kelani said here was correct! This was a very justifiable promo, and this is exactly what Lani needed!
Grade: B+
After Chase University confronted OTM (Mr. Chase was not impressed). El Grande Americano made his NXT debut against Josh Briggs! The crowd absolutely adored El Grande; he was well over with the crowd, and that was also probably to do with the fact that the NXT Universe can’t stand Briggs! Even though Briggs got more of the offense in, Tavion Heights decided to be a nuisance for the referee, allowing Reyo and Bravo to attack Briggs before Americano scored the win!
Grade: C+
Neither Ava nor Tyra Mae Steele were impressed with Kelani Jordan’s attitude, resulting in a match being booked for later in the show, before we got a sit-down interview between Ricky Saints and Trick Williams ahead of their Last Man Standing Match next week! Both men were very fired up, with Trick making it clear that Ricky doesn’t deserve to be NXT Champion, whilst Saints knows that Williams needs the Title to feel secure! Eventually, neither man could be bothered to wait any longer, so they found each other and started a backstage brawl, with Trick Willy standing tall after he nailed the NXT Champion with a metal pipe! The fact that this match is happening next week is super odd to me, but I just need this feud to end!
Grade: C+
NXT Women’s Speed Championship Tournament (Semi-Finals): Zaria VS Wren Sinclair, Kelani Jordan VS Tyra Mae Steele, Je’Von Evans VS Saquon Shugars
The first match of the NXT Women’s Speed Championship Tournament saw Zaria and Wren Sinclair do battle for the right to head to Gold Rush! I’m just repeating myself at this point, but the whole Speed gimmick just doesn’t work; it’s not entertaining like it’s supposed to be! I think the women’s matches work better simply because we’re used to having shorter matches with them anyway, and Zaria is someone who should be dominating people! However, once again, Zaria didn’t dominate, with Wren Sinclair getting in most of the offense before Zaria delivered a Spear and a Z5 to get the win! I’m so baffled by all of this!
Grade: C
NXT was clearly not hanging around on this show as we were straight into Kelani Jordan going one-on-one with Tyra Mae Steele! This match wasn’t the best; Tyra Mae Steele needs a lot more time in the ring before she can be on this type of stage, and Kelani should be facing more notable names too! Eventually, Jordan was able to score the win with her One of a Kind Split-Legged Moonsault before Santino Marella appeared on the titantron to confirm that Kelani will defend her TNA Knockouts World Championship against both Lei Ying Lee and Jordynne Grace at NXT Gold Rush!
Grade: C-
After both Sol Ruca and Jacy Jayne said they wanted rematches for their specific Titles, it was time for the Main Event match of the night as Je’Von Evans took on DarkState’s Saquon Shugars! This was a pretty decent match; Je’Von continues to be one of the best workers in NXT, whilst I do think Saquon Shugars is one of the few positive things about DarkState! However, this match didn’t exactly make him look great, with Shugars failing to take advantage of 4-on-1 scenarios! The referee was also really poor; how he didn’t call for the DQ finish I’ll never know, and eventually, Evans was able to run away with a pinfall victory!
Grade: B-
Ethan Page and Chelsea Green’s Championship Celebration
After Blake Monroe got a message from “her better half”, and Tatum Paxley told The Culling that she has one more thing she needs to do before she reigns everything in, the final segment on this week’s edition of NXT was fully dedicated to Ethan Page and Chelsea Green’s Championship Celebration! Ethan and Chelsea were delighted over becoming the brand-new AAA Mixed Tag Team Champions, once again proving why they’re the best that North America has to offer! They even had a Canadian cake, but Ethan was worried that Joe Hendry would appear from it, getting Alba Fyre to “say his name”! However, Joe just appeared on the entrance ramp like any normal person would do, and he said that he wants a shot at Page and Green’s Titles! This is when he revealed his partner by having a remix version of his song, and it was revealed to be Thea Hail, who jumped out of the cake, dressed as Joe Hendry, to beat up Chelsea and Alba! Both Hendry and Hail through Page and Green into cream, and this was such a bonkers segment that I fully enjoyed!
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