WWE NXT on USA: Results, Highlights, and Grades for Oct. 2
By Bryan Heaton
After two weeks of airing just an hour on USA, WWE NXT makes the leap to cable for the entire two-hour runtime this week with three huge championship matches. It also just happens to be the first week of head to head competition with AEW.
It seems like tonight has been a long time coming. Months of anticipation are over. At 8 p.m. ET, the Wednesday Night Wars between WWE NXT and AEW Dynamite finally, truly, officially began. And for WWE NXT, the brand put on a huge show to come out swinging, including three tremendous title matches.
The show opened with an NXT Championship match. Adam Cole, the incumbent champion, defended against Matt Riddle, who earned this opportunity last week by defeating Killian Dain in a Street Fight. Cole was banged up right now — partially at the hands of Riddle — but was determined to continue on as champ. Did the Original Bro pick up a big victory?
Cole’s fellow Undisputed Era teammates Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly were also in action, defending the NXT Tag Team Championships. Their opponents? The Street Profits, Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins, who lost the titles to UE a few weeks ago. Did the Street Profits get the smoke, or did they fall short in their efforts to reclaim the gold?
The final championship match of the night was set in the first NXT match on the USA Network two weeks ago — Candice LeRae won a Fatal Four-Way match to become the number one contender to the NXT Women’s Championship. Unfortunately for LeRae, that meant she ran into two-time champion Shayna Baszler. How did that turn out for LeRae?
But those title bouts weren’t the only matches on tap for tonight’s WWE NXT. The true face of NXT returned to action — Johnny Gargano. He battled Shane Thorne, who tried to interrupt Johnny Wrestling while addressing the crowd a few weeks back. Gargano says he’s NXT 4 Life, and he finally made his first appearance on the super-sized episodes this week to prove it.
Also advertised was a former North American Champion, The Velveteen Dream. He dropped the title two weeks ago to Roderick Strong, which is sure to be on his mind. But all we knew heading into the broadcast is that “The Velveteen Dream Experience” is coming to USA — and we didn’t really know what that meant.
So how did the show turn out? Read on for our full review of this week’s episode of WWE NXT, live on the USA Network!