After giving us one of the greatest Takeovers of all time this past Saturday night, NXT returned to our screens for a fairly standard post PPV outing from the brand.
NXT Takeover: New Orleans was one of the finest wrestling events I’ve ever watched. From top to bottom, the brand delivered an outstanding show, with the main event between Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa being widely hailed as one of the greatest in the company’s history.
On any other show, the opening six-man ladder match would have easily been the match of the night, while the NXT title match between Aleister Black and Andrade ‘Cien’ Almas was pretty special also.
Unlike its main roster counter-parts, however, NXT tends to take it fairly easy on their post PPV shows, presumably due to the fact they record several shows in one take later in the week. The vast majority of this week’s show was effectively an extended highlight package, with little to no real extension of any of the brand’s key storylines.
We were treated to two matches though, with Kairi Sane going one on one with Lacey Evans and a main event which saw Heavy Machinery take on Tino Sabbatelli and Riddick Moss. We were also treated to a surprise debut during the show. Let’s take a look back at this week’s matches and analyze all of the action.
Credit: WWE.Com
Kairi Sane vs. Lacey Evans
Result: Kairi Sane Wins With the Insane Elbow Drop
Grade: C+
With Ember Moon now having made her move up to the main roster, Kairi Sane will be one of the key candidates to move up and challenge new NXT women’s champion, Shayna Baszler, for the NXT Women’s Championship.
Given their history in the ring together, notably Sane defeating Baszler in the final of the Mae Young Classic, their feud should attract plenty of attention and will no doubt deliver from an in-ring perspective.
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As for Lacey Evans, this was her first appearance on the brand in three weeks, after she was squashed by Dakota Kai in an underwhelming encounter. Thankfully, Evans was made to look much stronger against Sane here, and with Moon moving up, hopefully, there is some room for some of the other talent to move up a little bit. Evans has a great gimmick and a really great look, creative just needs to book her to look a little stronger.
The two women had a solid back and forth encounter, which followed the fairly standard Sane formula. After Evans had maintained control for the majority of the match, Sane rallied back before finally putting her away with the Insane Elbow Drop, which, as always, was excellent to watch.
Following this match, we saw a bunch of highlight packages from Takeover: New Orleans which just reminded me how great of a show that was. Seriously, if you’ve not watched that show yet, stop whatever you are doing, I literally don’t care what it is, and go and watch that show, you will thank me later.
We also saw a brief segment with The Undisputed Era and Roderick Strong. Strong was asked to explain his actions at Takeover. He paused for a minute before the whole group walked off without answering.
Source: WWE.Com
Heavy Machinery vs. Tino Sabbatelli and Riddick Moss
Result: No Contest
Grade: C-
The night’s main event saw two teams who were knocked out of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic in the first round, go head to head.
Heavy Machinery remains as one of the most unique tag teams in the whole of the WWE, and their gimmick is always fun to watch. The two teams put on a match that was fine for the most part, but the match’s main reason for existence was its ending.
Just as Heavy Machinery began to take control of the match, Hanson and Rowe — former NJPW champions War Machine, now known as ‘War Raiders’ — interrupted and unleashed a beat down on both teams. Their arrival got a huge reaction from the crowd, with a very audible chant of their former team name breaking out in the arena.
It looks as though they will be feuding with Heavy Machinery going forward, which is fine with me. This was a fun ending to the show, on the whole.
Next: WWE 205 Live: Results, Grades and Analysis for April 10th
This was a fairly standard post PPV episode of NXT, which didn’t really offer all that much outside of the debut of The War Raiders at the end. Next week’s show, though, has the return of Johnny Gargano, and a match between Killian Dain and Lars Sullivan, so that should be well worth spending an hour of your time on.