NXT Review: 16/06

Zaria Starts the Show, Jackson Drake VS Tavion Heights: NXT North American Championship Number 1 Contender's Match

After a recap of last week’s star-studded show, this week’s edition of NXT kicked off with Zaria basking in the glory of becoming the brand-new NXT Women’s North American Champion! After being stuck in Sol Ruca’s shadow for over a year, Zaria is course-correcting her career with this Championship victory, with the crowd still seemingly behind her! Kelani Jordan then interrupted to give Zaria some “advice”, before both Kendal Grey and Lola Vice showed up, forcing Mr. Stone to book a Tag Team match for the Main Event! This was one of those rare occasions where NXT didn’t start with a match, and whilst this segment was needed, this was a mistake to start the show this way!

Credit: WWE

Grade: C

Credit: WWE

Thankfully, we then headed straight into the opening match of the night as Jackson Drake and Tavion Heights collided for the right to face Myles Borne for the NXT North American Championship at NXT The Great American Bash! I thought this was a good match on paper, with Tavion being a true pro wrestler, whilst Jackson is special! With The Vanity Project on the outside, there were always reasons to believe that Drake was going to find a way to win here, but it would’ve been wrong to have ruled out Heights given the fact that he’s been building a story with Myles Borne for a while! Speaking of Myles Borne, the reigning NXT North American Champion came to the aid of his former No Quarter Catch Crew brother, taking out both Brad Baylor and Ricky Smokes, as Tavion Heights dropped Jackson Drake with his finisher to get the win! I would assume that Myles is going to retain at the Bash, leading to a Heights Heel turn down the line!

Grade: B-

NXT Women’s Speed Championship Tournament (Semi-Finals): Izzi Dame VS Thea Hail, Jaida Parker VS Nattie, Arianna Grace VS Layla Diggs: NXT Women’s Speed Championship Tournament (Semi-Finals)

Hank and Tank were happily hanging out with Aaron Rourke and Matt Mathews in Mr. Stone’s brand-new office, only for the party to get ruined by Birth Right! We then headed into the opening match of the latest NXT Women’s Speed Championship Tournament as Izzi Dame and Thea Hail rekindled an old rivalry! Of course, these two faced off back in January, where Izzi defeated Thea at New Year’s Evil to become the brand-new NXT Women’s North American Champion! Unlike on that occasion, Hail was at least able to prepare for Dame this time around, whilst this match was of course no longer than 3 minutes! In fact, it finished with about 40 seconds still on the clock, with Dame scoring a convincing win over Thea to advance to next week’s Number 1 Contender’s Match (at least I assume that the match is taking place next week)!

Grade: C

Credit: WWE

After Wren Sinclair joked about Lola Vice and Kendal Grey having to “co-exist” in tonight’s Main Event, Tony D’Angelo met Naraku in some sort of Japanese garden to sign a contract ahead of their NXT Championship match at The Great American Bash! I really liked how this was shot, particularly as D’Angelo used to host these types of events in the past (with Santos Escobar, for example)! Keanu Carver was then very annoyed with Mr. Stone for “only” giving him a match against EK Prosper, before Jaida Parker looked to find herself again when she went one-on-one with Nattie! In fairness, after a slow start, this match grew into a pretty decent encounter! It’s probably the best Nattie match I’ve seen in like 10 years, which isn’t exactly a high bar, but I’m glad that we got to see it here! The crowd are still firmly behind Jaida, with me still waiting for her to be propelled into the Main Event scene! Instead, NXT decided to have Miss Parker tap to Nattie here, which is certainly an interesting decision! I would assume this is only going to further the story that’s currently being told here, with Karmen Petrovic and Nikkita Lyons seemingly forming some sort of an alliance with Nattie, but it’s still a weird decision!

Grade: B-

Lizzy Rain and Mason Rook were chatting backstage before Tristan Angels declared himself as “Mr. NXT”, due to Shiloh Hill not being medically cleared! Angels then challenged Aaron Rourke to a match for the Evolve Championship for next week’s show, before Arianna Grace and Layla Diggs collided in the second NXT Women’s Speed Championship Tournament Semi-Final! Layla Diggs certainly has a good amount of personality, with the NXT crowd already being fans of her! Layla actually reminds me of a young Bianca Belair, which I’d say is a pretty good compliment, and it’s going to be interesting to see just how far she can go in this business! Unfortunately for Diggs, her want to stand out by taking out the entirety of Birth Right proved to be a rookie error, with Arianna Grace taking advantage to steal a roll-up victory! Grace will now face Izzi Dame in the Final; a match I’m very much expecting her to lose!

Grade: C+

Whilst he was reluctant at first, Noam Dar says he’s happy to be teaming up with Romeo Moreno, whilst Sean Legacy feels the same way about Dorian Van Dux! Dorian then got him and Legacy a match with The Culling next week, but this felt more like a tease of Dux joining The Culling down the line! Tate Wilder then talked about how his first win in NXT is just around the corner, whilst we then got an NXT Chronicle focusing on Saquon Shugars! I believe Saquon does have the ability to work as a Babyface, but he’s still missing something! Dion Lennox was not impressed!

Lola Vice and Kendal Grey VS Zaria and Kelani Jordan

And in the Main Event of this week’s edition of NXT, Lola Vice and Kendal Grey were forced to team up to take on the pairing of Zaria and Kelani Jordan! Thankfully, NXT didn’t play on the “can they co-exist” trope, with Lola and Kendal basically working together as two strong singles stars! That’s sort of the same dynamic that Zaria and Kelani had also, with Zaria in the ring for the large majority of this match! I had expected that either Vice or Grey were going to pin Jordan in this match, but then it seemed to switch towards Zaria scoring the win! However, after Tatum Paxley made a surprise appearance to cause a distraction, Lola Vice took advantage, hitting a Back Fist as the NXT Women’s Champion pinned the NXT Women’s North American Champion! After the match was over, Kelani Jordan tried to grab the NXT Women’s Title, leading to Kendal Grey accidentally flooring Lola Vice with said Title! Their match at The Great American Bash should be pretty good!

Credit: WWE

Grade: B-