Powell’s NXT Hit List: Gold Rush Night One with Tatum Paxley vs. Jacy Jayne for the NXT Women’s Title, Blake Monroe vs. Sol Ruca for the NXT Women’s North American Title

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

NXT Gold Rush Night One Hits

“DarkState” Dion Lennox and Osiris Griffin vs. Je’Von Evans and Leon Slater for the NXT Tag Team Titles: A suspenseful title match with some strong near falls for the challengers. Will Slater and Evans remain happy-go-lucky partners after Evans accidentally frog splashed Slater late in this match? Or will that spot cause the friction that leads to their anxiously awaited rematch for the X Division Title? DarkState is growing on me, but they need to be booked consistently as a strong faction. There have been too many times when they have been booked to look like pushovers.

Ricky Saints and Oba Femi: They set the table for what should be an interesting NXT Championship rematch at NXT Deadline. Saints has been getting some boos or, worse yet, apathy from live crowds. So I could see the title match being designed to have Saints win over the fans by showing heart against his powerhouse challenger, or to lean into the boos by having Saints cheat to win in a heel turn. One can only hope that Trick Williams’ interruption of this segment was just to set up his match with Myles Borne for next week, and isn’t leading to another three-way or four-way title match.

Tatum Paxley vs. Jacy Jayne for the NXT Women’s Championship: I’m going to separate the body of the match from the finish, because the work of the wrestlers was Hit worthy. I figured it was only a matter of time before The Culling turned on Paxley, but the way they got there was a groaner (more on that in the Miss section).

Blake Monroe vs. Sol Ruca for the NXT Women’s North American Championship: I can’t help but feel like Monroe and Ruca should be feuding over the NXT Women’s Championship, while Paxley would have been a better fit with the North American Championship. Putting that aside, this was a logically booked match with Monroe targeting Ruca’s injured knee. This played into Monroe being a sadistic heel, while also setting up the finish with Zaria throwing in the towel despite the objection of Ruca.

Chelsea Green and Ethan Page vs. Thea Hail and Joe Hendry for the AAA Tag Team Titles: The mixed tag team titles don’t really appeal to me, but I am enjoying the new feud between these teams. I’d also get a kick out of seeing Zack Ryder find a partner so they could challenge his wife and Page.

NXT Gold Rush Night One Misses

The Culling’s turn on Tatum Paxley: You had to turn your brain off to go along with the logic of The Culling. They sat back and watched Paxley come close to beating Jayne several times, and Dame even took out Lainey Reid before sliding the title belt to Paxley. I didn’t notice Dame communicate with Shawn Spears and Niko Vance during the match, so apparently their big plan was to hope that Paxley would end up at ringside while the referee was distracted, and then Dame would boot Paxley in the face and throw her back in the ring to be pinned by Jayne. I guess Dame didn’t want the title; she just didn’t want Paxley to have it. Ugh.

(Jason Powell, founder and editor of ProWrestling.net, has covered pro wrestling full-time dating back to 1997. He hosts a weekly podcast, Pro Wrestling Boom, and also appears regularly on the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast. Reach him via email at dotnetjason@gmail.com and on social media via @prowrestlingnet.bsky.social or x.com/prowrestlingnet. For his full bio and information on this website, click here.)