Powell’s NXT 2.0 Hit List: Toxic Attraction vs. Cora Jade, Indi Hartwell, and Roxanne Perez, Bron Breakker vs. Duke Hudson for the NXT Title, Julius Creed and Brutus Creed vs. Edris Enofe and Malik Boyd for the NXT Tag Titles, Tiffany Stratton vs. Fallon Henley, Xyon Quinn vs. Wes Lee, Giovanni Vinci vs. Guru Raj

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

NXT 2.0 Hits

Cora Jade, Indi Hartwell, and Roxanne Perez vs. “Toxic Attraction” Mandy Rose, Gigi Dolin, and Jacy Jayne: An entertaining main event until the awkward finish. Dolin appeared to be injured, which led to Perez gently covering her to end the match. The babyface trio going over was perfectly logical in that it sets them up as challengers for the holders of the women’s singles and tag team titles.

Julius Creed and Brutus Creed vs. Edris Enofe and Malik Boyd for the NXT Tag Titles: A quality tag title match between two babyface tag teams. The match went a bit longer than it needed to, but it was still enjoyable. Despite some unplanned changes to Diamond Mine caused by talent cuts, the faction is in a good place in terms of it being easy to follow the dynamic between the Creeds and Ivy Nile growing tired of Roderick Strong’s approach to leadership. Meanwhile, Enofe and Boyd are a solid developmental tag team that haven’t settled in on the right personas. Perhaps Cameron Grimes calling them out on not taking things seriously enough is a step toward the duo finding the right groove.

Tiffany Stratton vs. Fallon Henley: Bad Wendy Choo finish aside, this was a good television match. Stratton improves with every outing and is working in some impressive moves that take advantage of her athletic ability. Stratton has a chance to be something special, and Henley continues to be the best thing about NXT’s country crew.

Character profile vignettes: Some of these packages were better than others (we can see Apollo Crews’s fantasies?), but it’s great to see NXT taking the time to define their characters. The Lash Legend piece was especially good in terms of showing her legitimate athletic background. I wish some effort would have been made to explain why she uses the Lash Legend game given that they used so much footage of her using her real name prior to NXT. A quick explanation for the name change could give the name some meaning rather than having it feel like something that was spit out of WWE’s random name generator.

Wes Lee vs. Xyon Quinn: A clean and decisive win for Lee over Quinn in their rematch. It was good to see NXT double down on Lee beating Quinn rather than taking the parity booking approach. It will be interesting to see what’s next for Lee now that Quinn appears to be moving on to feud with Sanga.

NXT 2.0 Misses

The Dyad vs. Javier Bernal and Dante Chen: Just when it seemed like Joe Gacy’s act couldn’t get worse, they introduced his masked henchmen as wrestlers who work in awful red-hooded outfits. This was turn the channel and never look back material.

Bron Breakker vs. Duke Hudson vs. the NXT Championship: NXT creative cast Hudson as a poker player and his upside potential stood out in spite of the oddball gimmick. And then they booked him in a corny romance angle with Persia Pirotta. Hudson somehow came out of that silly saga with minimal damage and it seemed like he would finally get a chance to work a more traditional heel role when he was given a DQ win over Breakker. But rather than build up Hudson as a strong challenger for the NXT Championship, he was beaten clean by Solo Sikoa and then fed to Breakker in just 46 seconds. It was a solid television win for Breakker, but it’s a win that would have meant a lot more if Hudson had received a proper build.

Tony D’Angelo promotes Stacks and Two Dimes: This segment dragged on to the point that I felt like I was watching a three-hour Raw show held while half the crew was working overseas. Stacks and Two Dimes’ match against Carmelo Hayes and Trick Williams later in the show was fine from an in-ring standpoint. It seemed like Hayes was working harder than usual to turn the fans against him during his promo last week, but then he and Williams ended up playing babyfaces in this match.

Giovanni Vinci: I’m not a fan of reintroductions that require the broadcast team to act like they are unfamiliar with a wrestler despite having called so many of his past matches. I am a fan of the work of Fabian Aichner, who is now working as Giovanni Vinci, so hopefully he can make this work. Is it too late to move Sofia Cromwell to the Vinci act? Von Wagner is a lousy promo, but is he so bad that he needs two people talking for him?