NXT Review: 15/07

Fatal Influence Start the Show, Trick Williams, Joe Hendry, and Mike Santana VS DarkState

The first NXT following The Great American Bash kicked off with Fatal Influence as Jacy Jayne basked in the glory of her successful Title defense over Jordynne Grace at Evolution! Jacy said that whilst some members of Fatal Influence dropped the ball on Saturday, they made up for it on Sunday, and speaking of Sunday, this Sunday will be the moment where Jayne makes history as the first person to ever hold Gold from both WWE and TNA at the same time! This brought out Masha Slamovich who laughed at this idea, and ZaRuca later followed suit after Jayne said she was going to be the only double Champion around! This opening segment was all about setting up the show’s Main Event, and for that it was fine!

Grade: C+

Credit: WWE

After a great video package highlighting the story of Tony D’Angelo, from the beginnings of 2.0 to becoming The Don, it was time for the opening match of the night as Trick Williams, Joe Hendry, and Mike Santana were supposed to align themselves to take on DarkState! Now, Joe and Mike worked well together, they had no issues, but Trick had no interest in helping out whatsoever! DarkState were DarkState, they’re not that great, but this match didn’t even end clean as after Hendry and Santana both floored Williams, The System (from TNA) showed up and attacked DS, resulting in the match being called off! Maybe we’ll see Matt Cardona on NXT soon, then!

Grade: C+

Evolve Women’s Championship: Kali Armstrong VS Karmen Petrovic, Channing “Stacks” Lorenzo VS Tony D’Angelo VS Luca Crusifino, Josh Briggs Gets Interrupted

Arianna Grace and Karmen Petrovic both agreed that they should’ve been in the Evolution Battle Royal, but one person who didn’t agree with that assessment was Kali Armstrong! We then got the second D’Angelo Family video of the night, this time around the arrival and rise of Channing “Stacks” Lorenzo, and then it was time for Kali Armstrong to defend her Evolve Women’s Championship against Karmen Petrovic! Ultimately, this match went about 3 minutes before Jordynne Grace just showed up and caused a DQ finish, I’m not really sure what Kali or Karmen did wrong, but okay! Jordynne immediately called out Blake Monroe, but Monroe instead appeared on the screen, inviting Grace to be front row for her NXT singles debut next week! Grace was clearly still angry about all of this as she then beat up both Stevie Turner and Mr. Stone!

Credit: WWE

Grade: C

Credit: WWE

Ava told Jasper Troy that he can’t keep wrecking people whenever he wants before we got another video package, this time about Luca Crusifino and the fall of The Family! Lash Legend was then hyping herself up after her brilliant performance at Evolution, only to be put down by Jaida Parker, before it was time for the final chapter of The D’Angelo Family as Tony D’Angelo, Channing “Stacks” Lorenzo, and Luca Crusifino went at it in a Triple Threat match! This was a decent match, whilst there wasn’t really anything on the line in terms of a stipulation, this did feel important because The D’Angelo Family has been a constant on NXT for years now! It looked like Stacks was going to win at one point, but things didn’t end too well for him as he got Speared through the Podium/Platform area before D’Angelo sent Luca crashing through the announce table! Tony D then delivered another Spinebuster, this time to Stacks in the ring to get the win, and maybe this should be the end of The Don in NXT!

Grade: B-

Tavion Heights and Charlie Dempsey were once again clashing backstage, and Wren Sinclair has clearly had enough before Josh Briggs came out to say that Yoshiki Inamura blew it! Briggs claimed that he should be getting an opportunity at the NXT Championship, and this is when Oba Femi arrived to make it clear that Josh doesn’t deserve anything! Inamura was then out next to say he will only win the NXT Title by fighting with honour, and this annoyed Briggs who demanded a Triple Threat for next week! Oba accepted before a brawl broke out, and yeah, this feels sudden, but I guess this means Femi’s going to get a bigger opponent for NXT Heatwave!

Grade: C+

Fatal Influence VS Masha Slamovich and ZaRuca

After a terrific Ethan Page video, Ricky Saints challenging Jasper Troy, and Izzi Dame comforting Tatum Paxley, it was Main Event time as Fatal Influence took on the star trio of Masha Slamovich and ZaRuca! There were a lot of Champions in this match, a lot of Titles, and I thought this was good, this was a good Main Event! I always praise Fatal Influence, I think they’re a really good trio, and I rate Masha Slamovich more and more every time I see her! ZaRuca are cool, Sol Ruca’s a star, and yeah, all of this was good! Towards the end of the match, The Culling decided to show up, and this started a brawl between Izzi Dame, Tatum Paxley, Sol Ruca, and Zaria before Slamovich nailed Jacy Jayne with the Snowplough to get the win! I’m really looking forward to Slamovich-Jayne at TNA Slammiversary, that really could go either way!

Grade: B-