NXT 2/13/19
Happy Friday Eve, my wrestling fam! It’s time to go over the yellow brand. There’s no Takeover event accompanying this week’s Elimination Chamber pay-per-view so things were not so high-octane. There was also the notable absence of Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa on this week’s power hour. Let’s jump in!
Dominik Dijakovic vs Shane Thorne
The much larger Dijakovic physically dominated the match early on, but Thorne managed to get some offense in, focusing on his arm. However, even with selling the arm injury, he was still strong enough to throw Thorne around. Dijakovic did a fantastic corkscrew plancha and won the match with his Feast Your Eyes maneuver.
Winner: Dominik Dijakovic
Thoughts: Every time someone says “Dijakovic”, I wonder how they’re going to shorten this dude’s name if and when he gets called up to the main roster. He still looks quite imposing so I hope something good is in the works for him.
Grade: C
Backstage: Undisputed Era said that they will be dripping in gold. Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish are getting back together and Roderick Strong will go back to singles competition. Io Shirai has her eye on the NXT Women’s Champion, but Bianca Belair says the title is hers.
Thoughts: Where does Undisputed Era go from here? At some point they’re going to have to break up, hopefully not in the near future. Maybe there will be a power struggle or something. I am excited for O’Reilly and Fish to team again though. And I’m interested to see how a feud between Shirai and Shayna Baszler would play out.
Grade: B
Humberto Carillo and Stacey Ervin Jr vs The Street Profits
Well, first Kassius Ohno came out and said how much he hated the NXT universe and he was going somewhere else. Keith Lee gave him the rolling elbow and said to keep the show rolling.
Carillo and Ervin’s actual opponents came out and the match started. There were a lot of hot tags and both Carillo and Ervin are able to pull off some great flippy stuff in the ring. The Street Profits won the match with a super blockbuster.
Afterwards, the Street Profits called out War Raiders. The European Union and Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch came out instead. Then the War Raiders came out, got blindsided by the Undisputed Era, and then laid waste to all the other teams in the ring.
Winner: Street Profits
Thoughts: Bye, Kassius! Carillo will probably end up on 205 live but his gymnastics prowess will fit right in with the cruiserweight division. I think we’re going to continue the feud between Undisputed Era and War Raiders, which makes me also think that the feud between the Forgotten Sons and Street Profits also isn’t finished.
Grade: B
Taynara Conti vs Aliyah
This match was somewhat okay. Conti got in a few judo throws and pretty good bicycle kick. Aliyah used her tag team partner Vanessa Borne to help her win.
Afterwards, Shayna Baszler and her crew came down and beat up on all the match participants.
Winner: Aliyah
Thoughts: Aliyah has been on NXT for so long; I really hope she finds something that sticks soon. Conti has had some good moments since arriving in the inaugural Mae Young Classic, but she still needs a lot seasoning before she’s ready to leave NXT.
Grade: C
Ricochet vs Adam Cole
The former NXT North American Champions were back again once again with a rematch. As always with Ricochet matches, he was doing things he really didn’t need to do like top rope suicide dives. His ankle got caught in the turnbuckle so of course, Cole took advantage of it. They had a lot of good back and forth and we saw a pretty good, albeit wince inducing, reverse huricanrana. Ricochet eventually won the match with a Northern Lights suplex, vertical suplex, and Vertigo sequence.
Undisputed Era attacked. Aleister Black tried to help Ricochet but got taken out by Roderick Strong. The show ended with the Undisputed Era doing their pose.
Winner: Ricochet
Thoughts: Adam Cole has really been eating the losses lately. I hope the top brass haven’t lost faith in him. I think having Undisputed Era involved a lot on this episode was a way to re-establish them though.
Grade: B+
Final Thoughts: Again, there’s no Takeover even to drive toward this week so it was just a regular weekly show. I did like that Gargano and Ciampa weren’t physically on the show because it forces the other talents to step up. It seems like we’ll be seeing the Undisputed Era even more going forward.
Overall Grade: B-
-Wynter
