By John Moore, Prowrestling.net Staffer (@liljohnm)
NXT TV
Aired July 11, 2018 on WWE Network
Taped June 21 in Winter Park, Florida at Full Sail University
Mauro Ranallo, Nigel McGuinness, and Percy Watson checked in on commentary. NXT North American Champion Adam Cole made his entrance, by himself, to start the show. Nigel McGuinness that usually the champion comes out second for their matches but this was a non-title match…
1. Adam Cole vs. Danny Burch in a non-title match. Mauro recapped the last takeover match between Undisputed Era and Lorcan and Burch which led to Lorcan getting an orbital bone injury. Cole grounded Burch and was yelling at him. Burch got to a vertical base and grounded Cole by running through him. Burch landed a mid-air drop toehold on Cole. Cole regained control on the outside by shoving Burch into the ringpost and then hitting him with a neckbreaker. Cole hit another neckbreaker in the ring. Cole stompped a mudhole into Burch in the corner. Cole hit Burch with a snap suplex and then worked on Burch’s upper back. After a sequence of Cole offense, Burch landed a Thesz Press on Cole which gave him the momentum. Nigel noted that Burch excels at punching due to a boxing background.
Burch landed a missile dropkick and kip up. Burch landed a German Suplex on Cole and then almost had a crossface locked in. Burch landed a headbutt on Cole. Burch hit Adam Cole with Nigel McGuinness’s finisher, the Tower of London, and got a nearfall on Cole. Cole dropped to his knee to block a Burch suplex. Cole hit a nice fakeout kick and then a pump kick which set up the Last Shot suplex. Burch kicked out at two. Cole hit Burch with a running superkick and then hit another Last Shot on Burch. Cole hit the Shining Wizard to the back of Burch’s head for the victory.
Adam Cole defeated Danny Burch via pinfall in 8:46.
The commentators talked about the high points of the match.
John’s Thoughts: A really good match and it’s cool seeing Danny Burch treated as an equal to Cole in the ring as opposed to the sell guy (which he’s been since 2012). I’m not a huge fan of non-title matches involving the champion but it works better here when the champion picks up the win. Usually on the main roster, the challenger wins to set up that weird parity pattern they use.
The cameras caught Candice LeRae in some sort of park area near Full Sail (i guess). She ran into Shayna Baszler who called LeRae a “sidekick”. No words, LeRae gave Baszler a slap. A Pull-apart brawl ensued with NXT staff breaking the two women apart. Percy Watson hyped up an Aleister Black segment for after the break…
John’s Thoughts: There’s the good ol’ Candice that we all knew and loved from the California indie scene…
Cathy Kelley interviewed Dakota Kai about Shayna Baszler’s comments last week. Kai talked about getting better every day and making her way back to the championship. Lacey Evans interrupted Dakota Kai by making Kai out to be inferior to her. Kai said she wants to kick the class out of Evans next week…
Vanessa Bourne made her entrance. She was less S&M this week and brought a mink jacket over her leotard…
2. Kairi Sane vs. Vanessa Bourne. Bourne and Sane traded position in the corner. Sane mocked Bourne with her pantomime telescope. Sane hit a Dragon Screw on Bourne and then went to a grounded ankle lock. Bourne made it to the ropes for a rope break. Bourne reversed a Crucifix Driver into a Samoan Drop. Bourne went to the body scissors submission. Sane changed the guard. Bourne hit a Final Cut Suplex on Sane. Bourne trapped Sane in the ropes in a Tarantula-like move with some roundhouse kicks for good measure.
Bourne was distracted by the crowd which allowed Sane go get back control. Sane hit Bourne with a neckbreaker. Bourne hit a few axe handles and then a huracanrana. Sane hit her running spear and she yelled “come on”. Sane hit her walk the plank forearm. Bourne tripped Sane to prevent the InSane elbow. Sane came back with a spinning backfist. Bourne blocked an Alabama Slam into a Ranhei Rollup. Sane reversed into a delayed stretch Boston Crab which she’s calling “The Anchor”. Sane picked up the submission win.
Kairi Sane defeated Vanessa Bourne via submission in 5:45.
Sane grabbed the mic and called out Shayna Baszler. Sane brought up how Baszler was strong, but Sane beat Baszler before. She said she will beat Baszler again, again, and again. Sane said she is coming for the treasure, the NXT women’s championship. Nigel hyped Kairi Sane vs. Candice LeRae vs. Nikki Cross vs. Bianca BelAir…
John’s Thoughts: A good win for Sane and Vanessa Bourne continues to improve in the ring. She was really green at one point but is really picking things up well, though she is not ready for prime time yet (I wonder how Mahabali Shera is doing now that he has access to the Performance Center). Hot women’s four way set up for next week but did they telegraph the finish with the pull-apart brawl…
Aleister Black was interviewed outside but was interrupted by Johnny Gargano. Gargano didn’t want Ciampa to be champion. Black essentially told Gargano to mind his own business. The show was about to cut to commercial with Aleister Black entering Full Sail but Tommasso Ciampa blindsided and beat down Black… [C]
John’s Thoughts: More world-building greatness by NXT. The main roster should treat their WWE shows like a self-contained universe. Also, more Gargano doing Eddie Edwards better than Eddie Edwards.
Nigel noted that Aleister Black was sent to a medical facility and hopefully he’ll be ready for his title defense in two weeks…
Kayla Braxton handled formal ring introductions for the tag team title match…
3. “Moustashe Mountain” Tyler Bate and Trent Seven vs. “The Undisputed Era” Kyle O’Reilly and Roderick Strong for the NXT Tag Team Championships. Both team had dueling chants with the women and children behind Moustashe Mountain and the young male voices behind Undisputed Era. Bate and Seven body slammed the Era guys on each other. Bate hit a dive and Seven hit an assisted back senton on both opponents. The Era went to ringside to retreat for a second. Bate and Seven hit their opponents with a double “Bop and Bang” punch. Kyle O’Reilly managed to help his team get control on the outside. Trent Seven fell on his knee due to O’Reilly tripping him. Mauro noted that Seven has leg issues which the heels were focusing their attack on.
O’Reilly and Strong cut the ring in half on the injured Seven. Strong removed Seven’s kneepad to continue the attack on Seven’s leg. O’Reilly mocked the mustaches of their opponents and jammed Seven’s leg into the ground. O’Reilly locked in a knee bar on Seven. More isolation ensued. Seven tried several times to fend off his opponents but the Era had good positioning. Seven’s best window at the time came by tossing both opponents outside. Seven kicked away strong and almost tagged in Bate but O’Reilly made a lap around the ring to trip off Bate and continue the Era’s game of isolating the leg of Trent Seven. Trent Seven blocked a punch and hit a snap DDT on Strong. O’Reilly got in and booted Bate off the apron again.
Trent Seven roundhouse kicked his way out of a heel hook. This allowed Bate to tag in for the really hot tag. Bate hit a high knee and leaping uppercut on Strong. Bate got a nearfall after a standing shooting star. Bate hit the helicopter spin on O’Reilly which O’Reilly reversed into a sleeper. Bate adjusted and Exploder Suplexed Strong into O’Reilly. Tyler Bate had a cool looking move by giving Strong a helicopter spin and O’Reilly a giant Swing by himself. Tyler Bate hit Strong with a German Suplex for a nearfall. The camera focused on Trent Seven being attended to by the doctors. Bate hit a liger kick on O’Reilly. Strong came back with a few kicks on Bate.
Bate hit the rebound lariat and Tyler Driver on Strong. O’Reilly kicked Bate to break up the pin. Bate started to show concern for Trent Seven who struggled to stand. Bate wouldn’t let Seven tag in. Bate went for another rebound lariat but Strong hit one of his signature backbreakers on Bate. Bate hit a brainbuster on Bate and got a great nearfall. Tyler Bate outsmarted the Era by causing Strong to give O’Reilly a lariat. Trent Seven tagged himself in and fought off both Era opponents. Seven hit a snug Dragon Suplex on O’Reilly. Seven hit his signature lariat for a nearfall.
Seven put Strong in the Torture Rack but it couldn’t hold due to Seven’s leg giving out. Roderick Strong locked in the strong clutch. Tyler Bate broke up the submission. Trent Seven tried to tag in but Kyle O’Reilly gave a diving elbow drop to the knee of Seven. Trent Seven struggled in the heel hook, even smashing at the knee of O’Reilly. O’Reilly noticed that Seven was close to Bate so he readjusted. Seven readjusted by trading stiff slaps with O’Reilly. Both men were brawling from the heel hook position. (My word! This is fun!). Kyle O’Reilly readjusted and locked in a double knee bar. Seven was great in his selling of the agony. Seven rolled around and almost tapped out. Tyler Bate held out the white towel. Mauro was selling the fact that Seven was like a father to him. Tyler Bate threw in the towel to give Undisputed Era the win.
The Undisputed Era defeated Moustache Mountain via Tyler Bate trowing in the towel in 17:30 to become the New NXT Tag Team Champions.
Mauro continued to sell that Trent Seven is a mentor to Tyler Bate. Bobby Fish and Adam Cole went out to celebrate with Strong and O’Reilly. O’Reilly was happy that he had his title belt guitar back. This closed out NXT…
John’s Thoughts: Maybe it’s just me being in the moment, but that was one on the best matches I seen in 2018 on “regular TV”. That was fire! It was the best match I’ve ever seen Trent Seven in, I’ll give you that. Trent Seven did an amazing job telling the broken knee story and him and O’Reilly trading in the ground game was phenomenal. Superman Tyler Bate was amazing too. Going back to O’Reilly, this guy is an MVP-type player in WWE and if this guy can find his way into the main event of the main roster, things will be great. O’Reilly is one of the best martial arts pro wrestlers out there and he makes sure to pay attention to his strong character work. Speaking of Strong, Roderick Strong is the “catalyst” of WWE. Whenever Paul Levesque wants to make something better in general, he just throws Roderick Strong out there to speed up a match and make it interesting (Mauro noted this when Strong would work Tag Team in NXT, Singles in NXT, in the UK, and on WWE 205 Live at the same time). This was a great match.
Some might argue that the story of Trent Seven being Tyler Bate’s mentor came out of nowhere (If you’re a Dot Net Member, you can check out Haydn Gleed and Darren Gutteridge’s old “British Invasion” podcasts where I learned that Trent Seven ran a wrestling school/promotion called Fight Club Pro. I think?); but that didn’t end up being a problem in the end because they told that story in the ring through Bate’s concern and Seven’s selling. Sometimes in the main roster, WWE forgets that the in-ring matches can tell stories and that’s where NXT and 205 Live excel, using their matches to tell stories. This was a strong story here. Overall, this was another hot episode of NXT with a Takeover Worthy main event match. I could also argue that it was too soon for the Era to get the belts right back but this match made up for it with the story they told. I’ll be by tomorrow with my NXT Hit List and Members Exclusive Audio Review. Sorry about not having a hit list last week, I was having a hard time finding a Lucha Underground stream due to El Rey not being on my cable system anymore, and thus I didn’t have time to do a hit list last thursday…
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