By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
NXT Deadline Hits
“Pretty Deadly” Kit Wilson and Elton Prince vs. “New Day” Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods for the NXT Tag Team Titles: This was every bit as fun as the match looked like it would be on paper. The four-way Eddie Guerrero tribute spot was especially great. Believe it or not, my favorite part about that spot was that the referee didn’t fall for it and didn’t come away looking like the dumbest person in the building for once. New Day winning the tag titles is probably a brief move. Even so, it’s a nice temporary boost for the brand and I’m already looking forward to the rematch between these two teams.
Carmelo Hayes vs. JD McDonagh vs. Grayson Waller vs. Joe Gacy vs. Axiom in the men’s Iron Survivor Challenge: Nonstop action. The wrestlers worked at a fast pace and produced a highly entertaining match. The producers did a really good job of making the two ISC matches feel unique. Everyone involved in this match did a terrific job and the wrestlers created good suspense down the stretch. As great as Hayes is, it was fun to see Waller steal the pin. If Waller is getting his shot on January 10, then it will be interesting to see who is next in line for NXT Vengeance Day less than a month later, as well as the big Stand & Deliver event.
Zoey Stark vs. Cora Jade vs. Roxanne Perez vs. Kiana James vs. Indi Hartwell in the women’s Iron Survivor Challenge: I went into the Iron Survivor Challenge matches with my guard up. I despised the King of the Mountain matches that seemed to inspire WWE’s latest gimmick match, but I was very pleasantly surprised by how well these matches went. They basically got rid of the bad elements of King of the Mountain and stripped it down into a concept match that actually works. It was a mild surprise to see Perez get the win if only because they seemed to foreshadow a Hartwell win when she confronted Mandy Rose on the go-home show.
Bron Breakker vs. Apollo Crews for the NXT Championship: There were some things working against this match. I don’t think the majority of fans saw Crews as a major threat to take the title, and they had to follow the fast pace of the men’s Iron Survivor Challenge match. This will probably be outside the top three of things that viewers remember about the show and yet it was still a quality match that concluded with a clean pinfall. I also liked the post match attack by Grayson Waller to set the table for the build to his title shot next month.
NXT Deadline Misses
Alba Fyre vs. Isla Dawn: The match was fine until the silly finish. As much as I want there to be some type of explanation that’s grounded in logic, Booker T labeling it supernatural pretty much killed all hope. I get that NXT experiments with a lot of different approaches and that’s fine. The Fiend had a tremendous amount of success and there was an audience for Alexa Bliss spinoff, but the hocus pocus stuff just isn’t for me and never will be. On a side note, it’s wild that Shawn Michaels mentioned in the post show that Dawn’s matches on the go-home show and at Deadline were the first two live television matches of her career. That’s a reminder of just how inexperienced some of the crew is, which makes it all the more impressive that NXT continues to produce a good product.
This is not meant to be in any way disrespectful to the man himself, but I am I the only getting a little bit tired of the constant Eddie Guerrero ‘tributes’ in wrestling? From shimmying before frog splashes to Three Amigos suplexes to this kind of “cheating”, it feels like it never stops. He was a wonderful talent, and sorry if this sounds mean or insensitive, but you would think he was the only wrestler who ever passed away from watching pro wrestling on TV.
I love the new match concept that they came up with. The only thing I would do is add 5 minutes. I know it is all fake but I think it would still give an element of more fairness to the last competitor who enters.
From a logic standpoint, the men should have tried to earn pins against each other rather than chase the leader for the last several seconds.Very small nitpick that can be explained away by saying they were caught up in the emotion of the moment.
Every woman in their match showed qualities that tell me that the division is in great hands for years to come.
I can’t believe that Dawn never has wrestled live before. I don’t love the hocus pocus stuff all that much myself but they are doing a good job selling her as a dark character. Again, watching this match and the interactions amongst the women’s tag teams just show me that the WWE’s pipeline for the division is limitless.
Wilson throwing the belt to Prince and flopping during the “hot potato” had me screaming with laughter. And yeah, so glad they had the ref getting pissed instead of bewildered. Just a magnificently choreographed gag.
The two matches we’ve seen being Isla Dawn’s first on live TV is bonkers. If they’ll drop the supernatural aspect and just have her be a goth girl/into modern witchcraft, there could very well be something there.