NXT Review: 07/04

Linus O'Howell
Apr 8
5 min read

Tony D’Angelo Starts the Show, Izzi Dame VS Sol Ruca

After a recap of everything that went down at Stand and Deliver, this week’s edition of NXT kicked off with its brand-new World Champion, Tony D’Angelo! Tony talked about how this moment has been a long time coming, that he’s grown so much from the guy who first walked into the Performance Center 5 years ago! However, now the focus turns to keeping hold of the NXT Championship, which brought out Joe Hendry, Ethan Page, and Ricky Saints to all stake their claim for another shot at NXT’s top prize! However, this is when DarkState struck, leading to a mass brawl that resulted in Mr. Stone booking an 8-Man Tag Team Match for later in the show! I swear we got the Stand and Deliver Main Event VS DarkState last year, but I think that also included Moose?

Grade: C+

Whilst Mr. Stone was making decisions backstage, Sol Ruca walked past all of them as she was ready to face Izzi Dame in the opening match of the night! As we will come to see throughout the rest of this show, Stand and Deliver really isn’t the final stage for Main Roster-bound talent, as Sol got in an awful lot of offense against an important player in Izzi Dame! I could genuinely see Izzi challenging Lola Vice at some point in 2026; that would be a decent little feud, and because of that, it was really important that Dame got the win here! Thankfully, she did, with a major assist from Zaria (who speared Ruca) opening the door for Izzi to deliver Dame Over to score the 3 count! As expected, the ZaRuca feud isn’t over yet, with their next (and hopefully final) contest taking place in 2 weeks in a Last Woman Standing Match!

Grade: B-

Jasper Troy VS Josh Briggs VS Keanu Carver, Tony D’Angelo, Ethan Page, Ricky Saints, and Joe Hendry VS DarkState

Because The Vanity Project are such gentleman, they gifted Blake Monroe her very own custom NXT Women’s North American Championship! Mr. Stone made it clear that that doesn’t actually make Blake the Champion, but he was willing to book a Mixed Tag Team Match for later in the show to see if Monroe could earn her way back into Title contention! The “NXT Speedsters” (as I like to call them) were then all hanging out together backstage before Jasper Troy, Josh Briggs, and Keanu Carver clashed in a seismic Triple Threat Match! The stakes for this match were very simple: which one of these three is the most dominant big man in NXT right now? Wrestling-wise, Josh Briggs is definitely the best, having had multiple great matches during his time in NXT, whilst accolade-wise, that would have to go to former LFG Season 1 and NXT Speed Champion, Jasper Troy! However, based on booking, WWE clearly seems the keenest on pushing Keanu Carver, who has been made to feel somewhat interesting due to his ongoing feud with Booker T! So, as expected, Carver won here, showcasing a great amount of power to lift Briggs up and down for the 3 count! I’m almost certain that Keanu Carver will win Championship Gold in 2026!

Grade: B-

Whilst Tatum Paxley and Shiloh Hill continue to have an awful lot of fun together, Ricky Saints just finds them weird! Speaking of Ricky Saints, he was forced to team up with Tony D’Angelo, Ethan Page, and Joe Hendry as the NXT Stand and Deliver 2026 Main Event took on DarkState in 8-Man Tag Team action! I really enjoyed the dynamic of this, with Tony and Joe more than happy to work together whilst Ethan and Ricky continued their odd but also great partnership! However, whilst both Hendry and D’Angelo really wanted to get their hands on DarkState, Page and Saints wouldn’t put themselves at risk to help the others, with them pulling away from making a tag on multiple occasions! Eventually, even though Team Stand and Deliver were able to take care of DarkState, Ethan Page followed up a blind tag by nailing Tony D right in the face, opening the door for All Ego to deliver a Twisted Grin to earn the win for himself! Once again, Ethan’s Heel work is untouchable!

Grade: B

NXT Speed Championship Tournament (Semi-Finals); Lexis King VS Chazz Hall, Tatum Paxley and Shiloh Hill VS Blake Monroe and Jackson Drake

Jaida Parker has no issue with finishing off Kelani Jordan for good next week, whilst Chazz “Starboy” Hall was then set to make his NXT debut when he faced Lexis King in the first match of the newest NXT Speed Championship Tournament! With Elio Lefleur unfortunately having to vacate his Title, the winner of this tournament would become the new Champion, meaning there was even more emphasis on winning here! With any Speed match, it only went a couple of minutes, but from what I saw, Chazz Hall looked pretty decent! The crowd were certainly behind “Starboy”, which is certainly an interesting choice for a nickname, but it didn’t exactly matter as a Coronation later was enough for Lexis King to advance to the Finals! King VS EK Prosper in the Final would certainly be interesting!

Grade: C+

Mr. Stone tried his best to make it clear to Myles Borne that he can’t just get involved in matches (after taking out Dion Lennox in the earlier DarkState match), but he didn’t get very far as Tony D’Angelo demanded a match with Ethan Page! Robert Stone was more than happy to give D’Angelo this, whilst we then got a potential tease for a future feud between Tony D and Keanu Carver! It was then time for the Main Event match of the night as the odd couple of Tatum Paxley and Shiloh Hill took on Blake Monroe and Jackson Drake! Firstly, can I just say that the inclusion of The Vanity Project in Blake Monroe’s entrance was absolutely fantastic; it worked perfectly! The match itself was also good fun, with Blake and Jackson’s characters really complementing each other, whilst Tatum and Shiloh are just fun to watch! Brad Baylor and Ricky Smokes kept getting involved on the outside to the annoyance of commentator Vic Joseph, whilst I’m doubling down on my belief that Jackson is going to be a Main Event player within the next 12 months! Despite Paxley and Hill having a longer partnership, nothing was going to stop the team of Drake and Blake, with Monroe eventually flooring Pax with a Glamour-Shot DDT to get the win! The funniest part about all of this was the referee giving Blake Monroe her fake Title!

Grade: B

Lola Vice’s Championship Celebration

After Mr. Stone announced “NXT Revenge” as a two-week special, featuring matches like Tony D’Angelo VS Ethan Page and Sol Ruca VS Zaria, the final segment on this week’s edition of NXT was saved for Lola Vice! Lola talked about how she was WWE’s biggest signing in 2022, and all of that hype and media coverage made her expect to become Champion almost immediately! However, that didn’t happen, with Vice quickly learning that she needed to put a ton of hard work in to get to the top, hence why she’s appeared in AAA so much! Now, Vice City is officially ready to take over, with her making history as the first-ever Cuban-American Champion in WWE history! This brought out Fatal Influence as Jacy Jayne made it clear that she wants a rematch, stating that all that Lola has done is open the door for The Rockstar to make history as the first-ever 3-time NXT Women’s Champion! Mr. Stone then came out to confirm that this match will take place at NXT Revenge Week 1, whilst Fatal Influence then tried to ambush the new Champion! Unfortunately for them, their plan didn’t work out, with Lola sending all three of them packing to close the show! Based on this, I feel like it’s safe to assume that both Jacy Jayne and Ethan Page are getting Raw after WrestleMania debuts!