NXT SEPTEMBER 27TH 2017

The show opened with Regal announcing a Fatal Fourway for the NXT Women’s Championship at Takeover Houston. Kairi Sane was already in and there would be three qualifying matches for the other places.

Sanity came through the crowd to begin the show proper and Young addressed Cole, O’Reilly and Fish, saying they wrote the book on making a mark and the only thing that mattered was chaos. Young told Cole he’d take him to the edge of sanity tonight.

Lars Sullivan vs. Oney Lorcan
Christie interviewed Lorcan before going out. Lorcan said he didn’t like Lars thinking he could do what he wanted to guys like No Way Jose and lets see what he could do to him. This was a good way of making Sullivan look huge, by putting him against someone who was basically him but half the size. The dynamic of the match really worked too. Lorcan hit as hard as he usually does, but Sullivan didn’t go down. He caught Lorcan on a big dive and dropped him face first on the ring apron and although Lorcan tried to fight back, Sullivan withstood it and turned Lorcan inside out with a clothesline. Sullivan hit his side slam seconds later for the win, in a match which really over-delivered. This was perfect for what it was and Lorcan continues to make the very most of his NXT screen time.

Sullivan teased hitting Lorcan with his finish again after the match, but Danny Burch ran out and distracted him, enough to prevent Lorcan taking the move. So they managed to further two stories in one, just to top this all off. Good job.

Kayla interviewed Ruby about Iconic. Ruby said Nikki Cross was the farthest thing from her friend and she had no idea why she helped her two weeks ago. She said if Peyton and Billie wanted another fight, they’d get one, but if Nikki showed up again, she had nothing to do with it and she’d better stay out of her way.

Heavy Machinery vs. Demitrius Bronson and Patrick Scott
A fun little squash. Heavy Machinery are still fine tuning things. Dozovic debuted a dancing elbow drop which may be a bit too wacky even for me and they changed up their finish a bit, with Tucker press slamming one guy into Dozovic’s arms before they hit the Compactor, which seemed a little superfluous. I’m still liking the team overall though and I think Full Sail do too.

Footage from the Performance Center aired, with Regal being interviewed by ‘media’ about Takeover. Regal stopped Gargano as he was leaving the building and said he’d agreed to give Gargano his rematch with Andrade in two weeks. Regal concluded his interview with the unidentified hands holding microphones by saying he’d come up with something special for Takeover which people were going to like.

Christie interviewed Strong earlier in the day about his title shot against McIntyre. Strong said he was training like this was his last chance, the same way he trained for every match, because he strived to be the very best. Strong said he knew Drew was rattled and he was a guy who kept getting back up and feared nothing. He’d been close before, but this time would be different and Drew didn’t have the tenacity to beat him. Strong addressed Drew and said all business was personal, but the best business was very personal and nothing was going to stop him until he heard himself announced as the new NXT Champion.

Liv Morgan vs. Vanessa Borne
Both got an inset promo about the NXT Womens Title situation claiming they’d be the next NXT Womens Champion. Simple match. It was okay, but you can tell Borne is still new. She gives off some serious mid-to-late 00s Divas division vibes. Liv won with a facecrusher into a codebreaker, which looked good.

Recap of Velveteen Dream interrupting Black last week. Black was shown practicing his kick-boxing at the Performance Center, which is becoming even more of a set piece lately, before being asked about Dream. Black accused Dream of thinking he was special, but he refused to acknowledge a child throwing a tantrum to get attention. Interestingly, he referred to Dream as ‘Patrick’ here, saying that if Patrick thought he could get his attention by being bizarre, he was rudely mistaken.

Kassius Ohno vs. Fabian Aichner
They aired a short video for Aichner before the match, covering his match in the Cruiserweight Classic with Jack Gallagher. They also established that he’d bulked up since and wasn’t a cruiserweight anymore. This was going along nicely enough, before Aichner decided to bust out a Taka Michinoku style dive to the floor to really spice things up. Aichner got to show his power a couple of times too and won over some of the crowd with all of this, before he missed a double springboard moonsault and Ohno made a comeback, finishing Aichner off with the Cyclone Kick. I’m glad Aichner got on the roster, because he was impressive in the CWC and he left an impression on the crowd here.

McIntyre was interviewed about Strong backstage. Drew said Strong was the guy to step up after he offered an opportunity and if Strong was looking out for number one, good for him. He said Strong would be the champion right now, but he lived in Drew McIntyre’s time and it’d be his first title defence next week, but not his last.

Recap of Kairi Sane in the Mae Young Classic.

Adam Cole w/Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly vs. Eric Young w/Sanity
Before the match, Cole cut a promo, asking how NXT survived without them. He asked everyone to feel this moment and said what they felt was change. He said they were untouchable, unstoppable and undisputed and it was their era. The match itself had a few teething problems and it didn’t get a ton of time, meaning the streak of really good TV main events ended here. It was fine, but nothing special and certainly nothing memorable as an in-ring debut for Cole. Wolfe and Dain ended up brawling with Fish and O’Reilly on the floor, with Young choosing to dive onto the pile instead of dropping an elbow on Cole. That cost him though, as Cole hit a running knee on Young when he got back in, for a pretty flat win. I don’t know if the knee is going to be his finish going forward or if this was a one-off, but presumably he won with it for a reason. Either way, I’d label that as subject to change, because it didn’t come off as a finish worthy move.

 

RECOMMENDED VIEWING: The show was heavy on the squashes early on, but it really felt like there was some direction here. Every match or segment had some purpose to it and it feels like a good chunk of the roster have something interesting going on now. Previous gaps between Takeovers, that hasn’t always been the case. It was another NXT that was better than the sum of it’s parts, but the one standout segment was Lorcan versus Sullivan, which was a very effective match and another great performance from Lorcan.

NXT WEEK: Drew McIntyre versus Roderick Strong for the NXT Championship.

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