NXT OCTOBER 11TH 2017
NXT Women’s Championship Qualifying Match
Nikki Cross vs. Liv Morgan vs. Peyton Royce w/Billie Kay
This was pretty fun and they did a decent job of keeping everybody involved in the match. A standard tower of doom spot eventually left all three down, at which point Undisputed Era came out with Taynara Conti and encouraged her to go to the ring. Taynara went after Cross and almost caused her to be rolled up, before she broke up a pin late on, leading to a chase which sent Cross into a spinkick from Peyton. Peyton then followed up with a fisherman’s suplex to qualify for the fourway at Takeover.
Lio Rush vs. Velveteen Dream
This stemmed from last week, when Dream attacked Rush before his scheduled debut match with Aleister Black. While this ended up being a quick defeat for Rush, it certainly made a good impression. A hot early sequence got the crowd behind Lio, before Dream gained some control. Rush got a brief fightback, before Dream hit his rolling DVD. An awesome looking double jump Purple Rainmaker then got Dream the pin. Rush is dynamic and I’m sure he’ll do just fine on NXT, but Dream looked great here too. He’s incredibly athletic, he’s found his footing in the ring and the character is down pat. Hopefully, he’s going places soon. The fact he’s in a feud that’ll presumably lead to a Takeover match is welcome progress. Dream sat cross legged in the middle of the ring ala Black post match and the story is now officially that he wants Black to say his name.
Recap of two weeks ago, with Lars Sullivan beating Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch making the save from a teased post match attack.
Lars Sullivan vs. Danny Burch
Burch took the fight straight to Sullivan with slaps, but Sullivan proved to be too much. He dominated nearly all of the match, withstood Burch’s attempt to fight back and won with the modified side slam. I’m not sure what kind of ceiling Sullivan really has, particularly on NXT, but then again Strowman’s done pretty okay as a big angry monster so who knows.
Recap of McIntyre beating Strong last week and Undisputed Era talking with Strong on the stage afterwards.
Street Profits vs. Damien Smith and Markos Espada
Another squash win for Street Profits, who continue to connect with Full Sail, winning with the spinebuster and frog splash double team and they celebrated in the crowd post match.
Johnny Gargano vs. Andrade “Cien” Almas w/Zelina Vega
Rematch from Takeover Brooklyn 3. While this was always going to struggle to match up to that, it was a strong match in it’s own right. Fairly back and forth all the way through, with a lot of creative little touches, it certainly didn’t feel like a retread of the first match. Almas tried to win by holding the tights on a pin at one point and both got near falls chasing the win. Almas ended up pushing the referee into the ropes to crotch Gargano and teased his hammerlock DDT off the top, but Gargano blocked and seemed to have the match won after a crucifix bomb into the Gargano Escape. Zelina removed her jacket to reveal a DIY shirt and although Gargano refused to be distracted, Almas still got to the ropes. Zelina got on the apron to properly distract Gargano and he and Almas traded rollups, before Almas sent Gargano into the bottom rope, hit the double knees to the back of the head twice and won with the hammerlock DDT. This picked up a good bit of steam towards the end and finished strongly.
RECOMMENDED VIEWING: This was a show that was heavier on the wrestling than usual, with not a single talking segment. The standouts were Rush versus Dream and Gargano versus Almas, but the show as a whole was very watchable.
NXT WEEK: An exclusive interview with Drew McIntyre, Sanity versus Undisputed Era in a six man tag and the second qualifying match for the Women’s Championship fourway at Takeover, with Ember Moon, Ruby Riot and Sonya Deville.