NXT Review: 12/05

Linus O'Howell
2 days ago
6 min read

Tatum Paxley and Lizzy Rain VS Zaria and Nikkita Lyons

This week’s edition of NXT kicked off with Tatum Paxley and Lizzy Rain teaming up to take on the duo of Zaria and Nikkita Lyons! Zaria was rightly angry over the fact that she had to compete in this match, given that she’s been stuck in a Tag Team for over a year! It kind of felt backwards in one sense, but I do understand that it was NXT’s way of stacking up the names in the NXT Women’s North American Championship scene! I did think that Tatum and Lizzy gelled well together; they were both in green, and the crowd is clearly behind them both! As expected, Zaria had had enough by the end of this match, abandoning Nikkita Lyons, which opened the door for Rain to nail Lyons with her finishing maneuver to get the win! Nice and simple booking!

Grade: C+

Naraku’s NXT In-Ring Debut, BirthRight VS EK Prosper, Sean Legacy, and Tate Wilder

Wren Sinclair told Kendal Grey that she doesn’t want to be a distraction to her, costing her matches that mind end up resulting in the two falling out like ZaRuca did! Kendal wasn’t having any of this, but she also wasn’t having anything of what Lola Vice was saying either! Naraku then made his highly anticipated NXT debut when he stepped into the ring to take on Lince Dorado! Yes, the Lince Dorado, formerly of The Lucha House Party and current AAA performer! This was honestly quite a big shock, but it obviously wasn’t as big of a return as the debut of Naraku! Naraku looked good here; his size gave him a pretty strong presence between the ropes, and it was overall a pretty dominant performance! I don’t have too much to note here, but what I did like is that this match went longer than 3 minutes; something I’ve complained about when it comes to Oba Femi on the Main Roster! Eventually, Naraku got the win before he called himself “Pure Evil”!

Grade: B-

EK Prosper, Sean Legacy, Tate Wilder, and Dorian Van Dux were all hanging out together in the Men’s Locker Room, before Nattie’s attempt to film something for LFG was quickly ruined by Jaida Parker! I don’t need to see that feud, please! Anyway, Prosper, Legacy, and Wilder were then all heading down to the ring to take on BirthRight in 6-Man Tag Team action! It was nice to finally see Charlie Dempsey wrestling here, given his entire job since joining BirthRight is just to stand alongside the others! I say it every week, but Uriah Connors easily has the highest ceiling of anyone in this group; he’s great, whilst Sean Legacy and EK Prosper are good midcard talent (at least for now)! However, a lot of this match was built around the fact that this was Tate Wilder’s NXT in-ring debut, and in a similar way to Naraku a little bit earlier on, Tate really wanted to make an impression! The problem with that, however, is that Wilder took it way too far, refusing to tag in either Legacy or Prosper on multiple occasions! This ultimately backfired on the new Rookie, with BirthRight actually winning for once! I appreciate that neither EK nor Sean got in the ring to break up the pin; why would they?!

Grade: C+

Mason Rook Signs for NXT, Jackson Drake VS Noam Dar

Tatum Paxley has gone back to wanting to be a fighting Champion now that Izzi Dame is officially dealt with, which is why she offered an NXT Women’s North American Championship opportunity to Lizzy Rain for next week’s NXT! Shiloh Hill then came over to hang out, before Tristan Angels said he’d make an example out of Hill next week! I like this Angles guy! The Culling then praised Izzi Dame for guiding them onto the right path, before Mr. Stone was out in the ring to sign his latest NXT Wrestler! That wrestler is Mason Rook, who deserves an awful lot of credit for getting big outside of just the NXT bubble, with even John Cena giving him a shoutout over the past week! As expected, Mason’s official contract signing was interrupted by Tony D’Angelo, who said that whilst he respects Rook for going straight after the top guy in NXT, doing it on more than one occasion is not okay! Kam Hendrix then attacked Tony D from behind, leading to Rook taking all of them out with a massive Moonsault, before he officially signed his NXT contract! People just need to be patient when it comes to the NXT Main Event scene; it’ll get better!

Grade: C+

Noam Dar wasn’t convinced whether he’ll ever be able to get back to the heights he once achieved, whilst Romeo Moreno is clearly a big fan of Dar’s work! Week 2 of Emily Agard’s interviews saw her hang out with OTM in what I assume is their backyard? Anyway, OTM actually opened up in this promo, talking about their lives to this point, with Bronco Nima even introducing us to his brother that he looks after, after his mother died! I have to say, NXT is doing a brilliant job at the moment of making their wrestlers feel real, like the character development is amazing! It was then time for the Main Event match of the night as Noam Dar returned to action with a one-on-one match against Jackson Drake! I appreciated how polar-opposite this match actually was for Noam Dar, with The Vanity Project and Myla Lockwood both doing their best to help Jackson win! Of course, only a few matches ago in the career of Supernova 11 (which was a couple of years ago, granted), he had Meta-Four helping him, so it was kind of cool to see just how much things have changed since Noam’s last two injuries! It’s also weird seeing Dar as a Babyface, but I’m not convinced that it’s going to last for long so it’s manageable! Anyway, after Lockwood got involved behind the referee’s back, Jackson Drake took advantage to score another win! After the match was over, DarkState showed up, with them cashing in their rematch for the NXT Tag Team Championships! However, Cutler James then confirmed that it’s actually going to be Dion Lennox and Saquon Shugars who will take on The Vanity Project next week, which is definitely something to keep an eye on!

Grade: C+

Tavion Heights was once again losing his cool towards Myles Borne after Myles confirmed that he’s going to be teaming up with Tony D’Angelo next week, whilst Naraka was a little too strong for Mr. Stone’s liking! Kam Hendrix and Mason Rook weren’t at all happy with Stone’s decision to book them in a Tag Team match against Borne and D’Angelo, before Tate Wilder got his wish of another match next week in the form of Keanu Carver! This Wilder guy isn’t smart at all!

Kendal Grey VS Kelani Jordan

After Kali Armstrong said that she’s going to run through NXT just like she did Evolve, it was Main Event time on this week’s edition of NXT as Kendal Grey looked to get payback on Kelani Jordan! We can talk a lot about how NXT has lost its top talent, its stars, and you can see that through a lot of this show! However, this Main Event was between two women who were highly relevant well before the Main Roster call-ups, and they should be the types of people that NXT builds around moving forward! Kendal Grey has everything to be a major Champion when it comes to her in-ring work; she’s like a breath of fresh air in the technical game! Kelani Jordan is also great; she could’ve easily moved up to Raw or SmackDown, also, whilst Wren Sinclair’s acting on the outside was very entertaining! Backstage, we saw a brawl break out between Lola Vice and Izzi Dame, a brawl that eventually found its way into the main arena! Unfortunately, Wren got caught up in this, only further damaging her injury, and this distraction proved costly for Kendal! See, Sinclair was right, as Jordan scored the win due to Wren being at ringside! After the match was over, Kendal Grey got into the face of Lola Vice, before Izzi Dame floored Lola with a massive boot to end the show standing tall! Once again, the Women’s Division is the best thing about NXT!