Gutteridge’s NXT Hit List: Oney Lorcan vs. El Vagabundo, Peyton Royce vs. Aliyah, and Heavy Machinery vs. The Bollywood Boys, plus fallout from Takeover: Orlando

By Darren Gutteridge

NXT Hits

Heavy Machinery vs. The Bollywood Boys: As groan worthy as the Bollywood gimmick is, the Shira brothers bumped like champs for Heavy Machinery. If DIY are going to stick around for a little while, they can take on the Authors of Pain one more time, but Heavy Machinery may be lined up for a feud after that.

NXT Misses

Takeover: Orlando fallout: Post Takeover shows always take the approach of being video package heavy with follow up promos, but none of them made an impact on me save for the Nakamura retrospective and the footage of Drew McIntyre talking backstage. Everyone else was simply filling for time with their mic work instead of saying something meaningful for the weeks ahead.

Oney Lorcan vs. El Vagabundo: This was an unfortunate storm of wrong. Had this taken place at Full Sail, it may have gone to plan. I highly doubt Full Sail would ever get on-board with Elias Samson, even if he was doing a goofy masked gimmick. But the delirious wrestling crowd in Orlando loved the character, only for it to be too late to change his promo to a babyface one or to have Lorcan lose. A missed opportunity for something fun.

Aliyah vs. Peyton Royce: This show was always going to have an uphill struggle to feel relevant, as all shows following Takeover do, Unfortunately, the first match reflected that feeling. Aliyah has not been portrayed as a credible threat to anyone, so this may as well have been a Royce squash match. It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t hold my attention at all.

Thanks for reading. If you have any thoughts or opinions on this article, share them with me via Twitter.com/TheGutteridge. You can also check out my website, FoulEntertainment.com