Weekly Wrasslin' Wroundup (NXT)

BANG ZOOM RIGHT IN THE KISSER

Behold, that rarest of beasts! An epsiode of NXT where a bunch of shit actually happened!


More Dusty Rhodes action as Glorious Ten faces the debuting Sanity. The combined entrances last longer than the match. To their credit, Sanity is a stable formula we haven't seen in a long time - a four-person team consisting of (semi-)credible contenders for all three belts.

The tag team is Sawyer Fulton and Alexander Wolfe, two big guys who've put in their years jobbing on NXT in various combinations. The woman is NIkki Cross, who's shown up once or twice. And the leader is Eric Young. As I suspected, Roode turns on Dillinger almost immediately as Fulton and Wolfe dominate early, leaving the ring as Sanity wins, then Cross and Young reveal themselves by beating up Dillinger post-match.

We further develop the women's midcard with the Aussie Mean Girls, Billie Kay and Peyton Royce. Kay is taking on Liv Morgan. It's at best an OK match. Kay wins after Peytonference, but none of these people are even close to Asuka, either in real world ability or story. Ember Moon is the only credible challenger to Asuka, and we're not seeing much of either of them lately.

Back to Dusty, as TM "We're Australian And Not Much Else" 61 faces the debuting Tino Sabatelli and Riddick Moss. Sabatelli was fairly prominent on Breaking Ground trying to make it to NXT television, and nearly a year later, here he is. Moss doesn't even get his name on the screen, so it;s no big shock when TM61 take the win. It's a high-energy match, at least, but the new guys don't show a particularly varied moveset. Also, Sabatelli is a rich, arrogant heel, which NXT has like six of right now.

So, after months of having to watch Blake and Murphy as a tag team, and mor4 months of occasionally watching them lose as singles wrestlers, and a week before watching them re-form as a tag team, we "get" to watch them wrestle each other. I mean, kudos to NXT to keeping their story alive on a show that doesn't always odo that, but beyond that, I have little reason to care. And NXT agrees with me, as Blake and Murphy are Samoa Joe's next victims.

Joe makes his usual demand - Nakamura or the title. He gets Nakamura, who comes out in a neck brace, slowly takes it off, then charges the ring. What follows is an epic series of pullaparts, as Joe and Nakamura try to get at each other. Nakamura ends up taking out most of the security team, and hits Joe with a Kinshasa in the ring. This is a new side to Nakamura, and if anything, Angry Nakamura looks even better than Confident Nakamura.