Powell’s NXT Hit List: Trick Williams vs. Dragon Lee vs. Axiom vs. Tyler Bate for a shot at the NXT North American Title, Dijak vs. Eddy Thorpe in a strap match, Butch vs. Joe Coffey in the Heritage Cup tournament final

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

NXT Hits

Eddy Thorpe vs. Dijak in a strap match: Three out of four ain’t bad. Thorpe’s niece was adorable as she and her mother and grandmother rooted him on. Unfortunately, Eddy’s father couldn’t stop smiling even while Dijak was whipping his son with a strap right in front of him. Putting that aside, Thorpe and Dijak really took it to one another. I like that Thorpe got the win only for Dijak to get his heat right back with the post match attack. The feud rolls on.

Bron Breakker and Baron Corbin: A strong show closing brawl. It was a good call to close with this as opposed to the Carmelo Hayes and Ilja Dragunov contract signing segment. While Hayes and Dragunov showed good intensity, the segment felt a little flat because the live crowd didn’t choose sides and just sat back and listened.

Trick Williams vs. Dragon Lee vs. Axiom vs. Tyler Bate for a shot at the NXT North American Championship at No Mercy: It was a good night for Williams. The live crowd was really hot for him and it felt like his win over Joe Gacy was the biggest win of his career only to be topped with this win later in the show.

Trick Williams vs. Joe Gacy: A nice clean win for Williams. The fans are ready for Trick to get a big push, but I’m not sure if Williams is at the point in his development where he’s truly ready for it. I suppose there’s only one way to find out.

Butch vs. Joe Coffey in the Heritage Cup tournament final: A quality match with the expected outcome of the main roster wrestler earning the title shot at No Mercy. Coffey gained something by going to the finals of the tournament, but they really need to give him a bounce back win next week.

Bronco Lima and Lucien Price vs. Hank Walker and Tank Ledger: A solid win for Lima and Price. Scrypts is settling into his role nicely. It seems like they’ve pulled back on having him perform his parkour moves, which is a good move for now because the focus should be on Lima and Price.

Thea Hail vs. Dani Palmer: Hail’s rebellion phase continued with a new look. I get a kick out of Duke Hudson nudging Andre Chase to remain complimentary and stopping him from making the situation worse by telling Hail how he really feels about her new attire. I continue to assume that this is a temporary shift for Hail and that she will eventually end up feuding with Jacy Jayne.

NXT Misses

Baron Corbin vs. Josh Briggs: I was really looking forward to this match, but it turned out to be a quick win for Corbin en route to his match with Bron Breakker at No Mercy. It’s fine if they are telling a story that somehow leads to Briggs becoming more competitive with Corbin in future matches, but it’s a big disappointment if this was meant to be a one and done. As much as I grumbled about the Briggs and Brooks Jensen tag team early in the NXT 2.0 days, their act with Fallon Henley really grew on me. Why are they not in the tag team title mix?

Tag team dinner: The set looked good and while the segment did provide some character development, I’m just not a fan of these contrived skits. There were also a couple of red flags. It turns out that my previously expressed concern over Angel Garza and Humberto Carrillo wearing lame claw mark tattoos like The Wolves in TNA was warranted. Meanwhile, Julius Creed and Brutus Creed came off like dopey frat boys rather than a serious tag team.