Powell’s NXT Hit List: Kyle O’Reilly vs. Cameron Grimes, Kushida vs. Oney Lorcan for the NXT Cruiserweight Championship, Sarray vs. Zoey Stark, LA Knight vs. Dexter Lumis, The Grizzled Young Veterans vs. Breezango, Ever-Rise vs. Fabian Aichner and Marcel Barthel

By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)

NXT Hits

Kyle O’Reilly vs. Cameron Grimes: A well worked match involving two of NXT’s top in-ring performers. As fun as the Grimes act is, I look forward to the day when he’s positioned as a legit main event player. It’s also worth noting that NXT delivered the big mixed tag match last week and followed up with O’Reilly vs. Grimes in this week’s main event. I could be mistaken, but my guess is that neither match would have been in the main event slot if NXT was still running head to head with AEW Dynamite.

Kushida vs. Oney Lorcan for the NXT Cruiserweight Championship: It was a pleasant surprise to see Lorcan accept the open challenge. There was no mystery regarding the outcome given that Kushida just won the title last week. I’d love to see Lorcan built up as a threat for a future match. The post match angle set up next week’s six-man tag match with Kushida and MSK vs. Legado Del Fantasma.

Sarray vs. Zoey Stark: A good match. It was more competitive than I expected Sarray’s debut match to be, but she had an impressive outing and picked up the win. Meanwhile, I like the way that Stark respectfully issued the challenge and then put up a good fight. The post match angle with Toni Storm attacking Stark was well done. It was a logical move given that Stark upset Storm in a Takeover pre-show match.

LA Knight vs. Dexter Lumis: The oddball romance between Lumis and Indi Hartwell continues to be good fun. Knight took advantage of Lumis being distracted by Hartwell and stole the win. Knight didn’t really gain anything from winning in that manner, but the segment held my interest.

NXT Misses

Tyler Breeze and Fandango vs. Zack Gibson and James Drake: The right team went over and the match quality was fine, but everything about this felt flat. The Breezango cosplay is rarely good for even a chuckle. Meanwhile, it feels like Gibson cuts a variation of the same promo every week. Gibson is a good talker who needs to shake things up.

Ever-Rise vs. Fabian Aichner and Marcel Barthel: A fine showcase win for Aichner and Barthel. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed that we didn’t get more Ever-Rise fun.