WWE NXT on USA: Results, Highlights, and Grades for Oct. 2

NXT Tag Team Championship Match

Undisputed Era (Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly) (c) vs. Street Profits (Montez Ford & Angelo Dawkins)

First off, bringing Wale onto TV is always a good decision. I’m not even a hip hop fan, but that dude is great. It also highlighted something about the Street Profits I never noticed before – their ability to flip the switch from “goofy guys having fun” to “WE ARE GOING TO STRAIGHT UP DESTROY EVERYTHING IN OUR PATH EN ROUTE TO GLORY.”

Just look at the eyes of both Ford and Dawkins during the ring announcements. Montez especially looked like he was a damn Terminator – stone cold focus on the task at hand. Yet LITERALLY ten seconds earlier he was dancing like a lunatic while Wale rapped him to the ring. I’d be TERRIFIED of King Tez if I saw that instantaneous change, man.

As for the match itself, well, it’s two great tag teams, so how do you think it went? Fish and O’Reilly have been doing this for YEARS, and the Street Profits have been one of the hottest acts in wrestling since before anyone on RAW ever heard of them.

I question Dawkins being the hot tag for the Profits, because Ford seems like the PERFECT guy to come in like a house of fire. He’s got the charisma, athletic ability, and overall talent to be that guy, but I guess because Dawkins is the bigger guy he’d be less believable as a face in peril.

https://twitter.com/WWENXT/status/1179577319129677824

Much like Shirai/Yim, the story in the tag title match was pretty simple to follow. Fish and O’Reilly have the edge in experience, so they exploited that like no other. Fish pulling Dawkins off the apron to prevent a tag? Veteran move. Quick tags? Veteran move. Cut the ring in half? Yeah, that’s a veteran move, too.

And good ol’ heels the UE also exploited the rules. Knowing how and where a referee will position himself allowed some double teams of questionable legality. And that five-count? Not broken until 4.999999999.

What about the Street Profits? Well, they’re still kind of newbies, so their situational awareness could use some work. In a big title match, you need to have your head on a swivel to avoid everything UE threw at them. The raw talent is there. After all, they are former NXT Tag Team Champions. And check out Tez with an absolutely insane dive to the outside OVER the ringpost!

But there’s only two Street Profits, and four members of the Undisputed Era. So when Roderick Strong came down to get involved, it was the numbers advantage UE needed to turn the tide in their favor for good, and poor Ford got hit with the Total Elimination as Fish and O’Reilly retained.

Winners: Undisputed Era

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

A fine tag team match, but at the end of a two hour-plus show, it needed a LOT more to justify the main event spot.

Maybe the goal was for the Tommaso Ciampa return to pop the crowd? It sure did, but imagine if the Finn Bálor return happened here, and Ciampa came back after the opener. It totally opens up all sorts of doors for future WWE NXT episodes and TakeOvers, but I think flipping the first and last matches of the night – and the post-match segments of each – would have been much more effective.

What did you think of this week’s episode of WWE NXT? Sound off in the comments below!