NXT Men’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic (Round 1): Carmelo Hayes and Trick Williams VS Edris Enofe and Malik Blade
NXT kicked off this week with Carmelo Hayes and Trick Williams teaming up to take on Edris Enofe and Malik Blade in the First Round of the NXT Men’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic. This was a pretty decent match which highlighted how over Trick Williams is whilst Enofe and Blade deserve more credit because they’re a genuinely good Tag Team. It also helps that Carmelo Hayes was in this match as Melo is a star, and in the end, a First 48 from Hayes followed by a Trick knee was enough for Trick Melo Gang to advance to the Semi-Finals!
Grade: B-
Oba Femi Promo, Lyra Valkyria and Tatum Paxley VS Elektra Lopez and Lola Vice, Joe Coffey VS Ridge Holland
Fallon Henley said her focus is fully on becoming the “Top Shelf in NXT” in 2024 before Elektra Lopez and Lola Vice “agreed” that they would become NXT Women’s Champion together. However, Tatum Paxley didn’t agree (and neither did I). Oba Femi then made his way down to the ring and my honest reaction was “Nobody’s going to beat this guy”! Oba talked about how it was his destiny to become a Champion as well as a leader before Dragon Lee arrived to request a rematch in the form of an Open Challenge. However, Femi made it clear that the NXT North American Championship Open Challenges are over, but it does look like we’re getting this match at NXT Vengeance Day. I don’t hate that idea, but I kind of wanted Dragon Lee to just be a SmackDown guy going forward.
Grade: C+
After Eddy Thorpe and Trey Bearhill met for the first time, Dijak walked in to trash-talk the pair of them. After this, Carmelo Hayes and Trick Williams were talking before Ilja Dragunov returned to tell Trick that their NXT Championship match will now be taking place at Vengeance Day. Whilst Trick loved this idea, Melo did not as that’s when the NXT Men’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic Final is set. Anyway, it was then time for some tag action as the team of Lyra Valkyria and Tatum Paxley took on Elektra Lopez and Lola Vice. The action here was alright, it wasn’t anything amazing, but I was glad to see Tatum Paxley in a more prominent role/position. It does still feel like the NXT Women’s Champion Lyra Valkyria is treading water a bit (that changed later on in the show) whilst Lola Vice isn’t believe-able enough to be the one to dethrone The Morgen. In the end, after Vice floored Tatum with a Roundhouse Kick, Pax somehow managed to fall into the cover and pin Elektra Lopez for a pretty good 3-count.
Grade: C+ (mainly because I liked the finish)
Stevie Turner spoke her first words on NXT Television in who knows how long before Arianna Grace talked about her chances of winning tonight’s Number 1 Contender’s Battle Royal. Unfortunately for Grace, everybody left out of boredom/disgust. We then got a match between Joe Coffey and Ridge Holland that was okay, even though it was very uninspiring. Whilst I think Ridge Holland’s run in NXT has the potential to be pretty good (I said such in my Prediction article the other day), he’s not a very interesting person to watch right now whilst I think everyone knows how I feel about Joe Coffey. In the end, Holland got the victory with his finisher before Gallus beat up Ridge after the match to ultimately stand tall. Whilst the match was pretty missable, the story that nobody wants to help Ridge is a good one.
Grade: C
Chase University VS The LWO: NXT Men’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic (Round 1), Dijak VS Trey Bearhill
Jacy Jayne seemed delighted over the work that her “fellow” Chase University students had done before she wished Thea Hail and “special guest” Karmen Petrovic good luck in tonight’s Main Event. I would like to know why Jacy wasn’t in the match thank you?! Anyway, Kelani Jordan then said she’s going to win tonight’s Number 1 Contender’s match before Baron Corbin and Bron Breakker started talking about team names after Bron suggested they should be called “The Wolf Dogs”. I’m not joking, this backstage interview lasted 3 minutes, and I thought it was great! Speaking of the NXT Men’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, Chase University’s Duke Hudson and Riley Osbourne took on The LWO’s Cruz Del Toro and Joaquin Wilde in the final first-round match. This was the match I was most excited about because I genuinely wasn’t sure who was going to win. That played out for the majority of this match as neither team could really establish control until Del Toro and Wilde did at the end and that was enough for them to pick up the victory. It’s a little bit silly that only 1 of the 4 teams left in this tournament are an actual team in NXT (and I wouldn’t even say they’re a cohesive one), but the Semi-Final stage is looking very exciting!
Grade: C+
After the NXT Tag Team Champions Tony D’Angelo and Channing “Stacks” Lorenzo hyped up Adrianna Rizzo and Von Wagner set his sights on Noam Dar’s NXT Heritage Cup, we got a one-on-one match between Dijak and Trey Bearhill. There wasn’t much to this match other than Dijak’s really cool and Joe Gacy was just on commentary. In actual fact, Joe did a pretty good job before he headbutted Dijak after the former Retribution member started to trash-talk commentators Vic Joseph and Booker T. In the end, though, this didn’t affect Dijak much as he scored the victory with a big boot before “Mr. Cool” and Joe Gacy brawled to the back. Back in the ring, Lexis King attacked Bearhill from behind to make a statement (I suppose).
Grade: C+ (All down to Joe Gacy)
NXT Women’s Championship Number 1 Contender’s Battle Royal
After Josh Briggs met up with JBL, No Quarter Catch Crew did some training, and Trick Williams did a pretty poor job convincing Carmelo Hayes that he’s still focused on winning the Dusty Cup, it was Main Event time as we got a 20-woman Battle Royal to determine who would face Lyra Valkyria for the NXT Women’s Championship at NXT Vengeance Day. Jakara Jackson, who was making her return to in-ring action, was dumped out first which seemed slightly harsh before Adrianna Rizzo and Jaida Parker were both eliminated after they focused on each other too much. The other big moments in this match saw Kelani Jordan pull off a Kofi-esque recovery (except she actually pulled it off), Karmen Petrovic eliminating Blair Davenport (only for BD to drop Petrovic anyway), and Elektra Lopez and Lola Vice brawling to the back after Vice eliminated Lopez (in a pretty dumb move). Lash Legend also looked really good here whilst Wren Sinclair, who was replacing the injured Cora Jade, managed to get all the way to the Final 5. Also, due to the rules of this match, the match eventually became a Fatal 4-Way between Fallon Henley, Kiana James, Kelani Jordan, and Roxanne Perez. I expected Fallon or Kiana to win it at the end due to their momentum, but in the end, it was neither of them as Perez dropped Jordan with Pop Rox to pick up a pretty surprising victory. The reason Roxanne winning was so surprising is it felt like she wasn’t even mentioned till well after half of the field had been eliminated. Still, Valkyria-Perez for the NXT Women’s Championship is a big-time match that should benefit both Superstars. Also, where were Tiffany Stratton and Nikkita Lyons?
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