NXT Great American Bash Night 1 Results, Highlights, and Grades

NXT Great American Bash Night 1 featured a dream match between Sasha Banks and Io Shirai, and a No. 1 Contender’s match for Shirai’s WWE NXT Women’s Championship fought amongst Candice LeRae, Mia Yim, Tegan Nox, and Dakota Kai.

The first night of the new television special also featured a foray into intergender wrestling with Rhea Ripley vs. Robert Stone and Aliyah. Oney Lorcan and Timothy Thatcher had a hard-hitting match, and the strap match between Roderick Strong and Dexter Lumis hit even harder.

Here were the full results, highlights, and grades from NXT Great American Bash’s first night.

Women’s No. 1 Contender’s Elimination Match

Mia Yim vs. Dakota Kai vs. Tegan Nox vs. Candice LeRae

Result: Tegan Nox pins Dakota Kai with the Shiniest Wizard

Grade: A, Definitely go out of your way to watch this match. All four women were great, but especially Mia Yim and then the exchanges between Tegan Nox and Dakota Kai. 

Mia Yim immediately chased Candice LeRae out of the ring, as LeRae wisely didn’t want to pick a fight. And the other heel, Dakota Kai, retreated to stretch outside the ring instead of facing her rival Dakota Kai. So Yim and Nox got to work before LeRae jumped in and hit Yim on the steel steps.

The match quickly reached incredible intensity, as the four women in the match did not hold back from going for high-risk moves, using the ring apron and dives to the outside to inflict maximum punishment. And whenever someone went for a pinfall, they had no time to recover from their disappointment at only getting two. There was always someone ready to swoop in with some more vicious offense.

Mia Yim and Tegan Nox worked together to eliminate Candice LeRae, with Yim trash-talking her rival on the way out.

Nox and Yim continued to work together on Kai, who had taken some serious offense from her rival. They were even trying to double-cover Kai on pinfalls, really selling how tough it is to beat Kai right now.

It didn’t take long for Yim and Nox to start fighting it out again, and Yim was showing off some more lovely moves, hanging in the ropes and charismatically talking trash with her fellow babyface.

Although Yim was on fire and hitting flying headscissors and other big moves on Nox, she ended up getting eliminated by Kai, who hit a lovely bridging pin to take out the HBIC.

Kai and Nox traded fists with everything they had, as great rivals do. Nox’s bridging fallaway slam is definitely a highlight worth checking out from this match. I mean, Nox’s offense, in general, is excellent, especially her power moves.

Nox and Kai were trading pinning predicaments, but Kai wisely trapped her in a submission. And, of course, Nox got out of it by turning it into a pin of her own, though Kai kicked out at two. Another great sequence!

But in the end, it was Nox who won, hitting the Shiniest Wizard to defeat her greatest rival and become the new challenger for Io Shirai’s NXT Title.