WWE NXT Review: 20-Man Battle Royal to determine #1 Contender for the NXT Championship
By Mike Smith
WWE.com
WWE NXT is only three weeks away from their second live, two-hour WWE Network special, NXT Takeover. There is a lot of anticipation for this show, after the glowing reviews that NXT Arrival got.
Emma vs. Charlotte in a first-round match of the NXT Women’s Championship Tournament
After a good, back-and-forth match, Emma pulled out VenEMMA, but she went wild and hit Sasha Banks, allowing Charlotte to pick up the win with Charlotte’s Web. Charlotte moves on to the second round of the tournament, where she will take on the winner of the Alexa Bliss-Alicia Fox match.
The Legionnaires vs. El Locale and Kalisto
Kalisto picked up the win with a handspring off the ropes, into an enziguri on Lefort. The offense from Kalisto was amazing. This was a fun match at the end, but the beginning with The Legionnaires beating down on El Locale had no heat to it and just dragged on.
Camacho vs. Captain Comic
Camacho got the win with a running powerslam. After the match, Camacho went back for more of Captain Comic, but Adam Rose came out and made the save.
Alicia Fox pre-taped promo/Alexa Bliss pre-taped promo/Alicia Fox vs. Alexa Bliss in a first-round match for the NXT Women’s Championship Tournament
Fox said she’s going to win this tournament and become NXT Women’s Champion, because she can see the future, and her’s has gold in it. She said that “haters are gonna hate, and winners are gonna celebrate.”
Bliss has an expectedly high voice. She said she hopes to impress in her NXT debut, and she wants to follow in Paige’s foot steps. She said that when she’s around, “life is Bliss.”
After Fox dominated most of the match, Bliss countered a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker into a small-package like pin to pick up the win. This match looked very similar to all of Paige’s matches on the main roster, and that’s a good way to build babyfaces and have them show heart, but it shouldn’t be done with two people at the same time, that takes away from its effectiveness.
Adrian Neville w/ Devin Taylor
This was brilliant. Neville clearly gets it. Devin asked him what he thought going into this battle royal. Neville said that the winner of this battle royal would have to work really hard. Neville compared the winner of this match to Cesaro winning at WrestleMania XXX.
In this promo, Neville built up his NXT Takeover opponent without even knowing who it would be. That’s an incredibly important aspect in building this match, as WWE is drawing out the process of naming the #1 contender. Very good job by Neville.
20-Man Battle Royal to determine the #1 Contender for the NXT Championship at NXT Takeover
Like most battle royals, this one started off slow. The action really picked up, and even led to some rapid fire eliminations by Bo Dallas, before he was eliminated by Tyson Kidd. In the end, it came down to Kidd, Tyler Breeze and Sami Zayn. After all three men teased elimination, they all went over the top rope and hit the floor at the same time. They argued with the referees, until Triple H came and made a #1 Contender’s Triple Threat Match for next week, much to the delight of the NXT Universe.
Overall Impression
Highly enjoyable show. Two pretty good Divas matches, to go with a solid, but short high-flying match, and a really entertaining main event. This is what NXT should be, and I hope to see shows like this for the next two weeks, leading into NXT Takeover.
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