WWE NXT Review: October 16, 2019

The show kicked off with the fight between Angel Garza and Tomaso Ciampa who made his in-ring comeback. After about three minutes Ciampa hit his opponent with the Willow’s Bell and pinned him for the win. The crowd celebrated every single move of Ciampa and in the light of this, his comeback was perfect.

After the match, all members of the Undisputed Era made their entrance and surrounded the ring. Ciampa set up a chair in the centre of the ring and held up a crutch. Kyle O’Reilly approached the commentary table and gave Mauro Ranallo a USB drive. Afterwards, the UE made their way back to the backstage area.

Then we saw the video file which was on the USB driver. It showed Velveteen Dream beaten up in a parking lot and the members of the Undisputed Era shouted at him that this would be the revenge for what he has done last week. O’Reilly closed the video with the words “dream over”. A nice video to show how dangerous the stable is.

Next, the match between the team of Danny Burch and Oney Lorcan, and the Imperium was scheduled. Fabian Aichner and Marcel Barthel were in the match while Alexander Wolfe was at ringside and Walter didn’t appear at all. The Imperium was able to get the win after about five minutes as they hit Lorcan with the European Bomb. Good to see these three members of the Imperium pick up a strong win since during the feud between Walter and Kushida they looked really weak.

Then we saw Cathy Kelley interviewing Johnny Gargano “earlier today” about Tommaso Ciampa’s return. Gargano noted his history with Ciampa and added that he doesn’t know how to feel about it before he meets his ex tag team partner in person.

Next, the match between Io Shirai and Kayden Carter took place which Shirai won after not even three minutes. After that, she grabbed a microphone and said “not Rhea, not Bianca, Shayna” but then got interrupted by Rhea Ripley’s theme music. Ripley entered the ring and took the mic from Shirai. He said that last week Bianca Belair ran her mouth and next week she’ll put her in her place. She added that if Shirai puts her name in her mouth once more, she’ll shut her up too. The Japanese superstar left the ring and went up the ramp as the segment closed.

I think we’ll see at the next NXT TakeOver a match with several superstars for the NXT Women’s Championship. Maybe Shayna Baszler vs Rhea Ripley vs Bianca Belair vs Io Shirai. This constellation, for example, has a lot of potential.

Then Cathy Kelly interviewed William Regal who said that Velveteen Dream is not cleared to compete next week against Roderick Strong for the NXT North American Championship. He added that due to that, the winner of the upcoming match between Keith Lee and Dominik Dijakovic will replace Dream in this match.

So, the fight between Lee and Dijakovic was a number one contender match. As we already have known from these two superstars, they were able to perform incredible moves even though they are both big men. In this match, we saw, for example, a Poison Rana in the final stage of the fight. However, after about 15 minutes Strong came out and attacked both performers with his belt for the no-contest end of this match. William Regal appeared on the balcony and said that Strong would be clever, but then he announced that he’ll have to defend his title next week in a triple threat match against Lee and Dijakovic.

After that, we saw the UE in the backstage area yelling at Regal and complaining about his decision. However, the GM just walked past them and didn’t listen. A good decision to turn it into a triple threat since this will be a hell of a match. Anyway, Strong will surely defend his title to look strong before he’ll continue his feud with Dream.

The match between Matt Riddle and Bronson Reed was next. Logically, Riddle easily won it after about three minutes and after the match, the two men shared a fist bump out of respect.

Then Tegan Nox also made her in-ring comeback in her match against Taynara which she won after about three minutes. After the match, Cathy Kelly interviewed Nox and Dakota Kai came out to give Nox a hug. Before she could answer a question of Kelly, Shayna Baszler and the MMA horsewomen came out.

Baszler said that she should ask Kai how it is to be with her in the ring and added that Nox is running out of limbs to get repaired. Nox asked for a title shot, but the champion said that she hasn’t earned it and that she should come back when she did anything to earn attention. A good post-match segment which is maybe another hint for a title match with several women involved as I already mentioned above.

A Finn Balor video package got aired in which he said that he’s returning to the past. He added that he’s finding his heart and also noted that next week his future will be his past. It’s exciting to see Balor back at NXT, but we’ll have to wait how this return develops.

Next up the match between Killian Dain and Boa took place. The reason for that fight was that Dain attacked last week Boa after his match against Cameron Grimes. Dain bet his opponent after not even four minutes via submission and then went up the ramp as Pete Dunne made his entrance for the main event. Dunne snapped the fingers of Dain and made his typical moves with Dain’s fingers to inflict pain. Referees had to hold Dain back after that as Dunne went down the ramp and waited for Damien Priest to make his entrance.

The match took about 14 minutes and both men had their phases in which they dominated, so both looked strong. In the end, Priest hit Dunne with a low blow what the referee didn’t see. Due to that, Priest had the chance to perform the Reckoning and get the pinfall victory. A good way to protect Dunne, but still give the win to Priest. This feud is surely not over yet, but it was a good first match between the two superstars. A big win for Priest which could have had even more impact without the unfair hit, but they didn’t want to let Dunne lose in a clean way.

A good episode of NXT with a lot of matches. In this week’s show, we had eight matches what is quite a huge number, but you have to add that many of them were not very long to bring over certain wrestlers. NXT has to be careful since they mainly use the same pattern: a match and after that a little segment at ringside. It’s okay to plan the shows that way, but they should vary a bit more in the future to avoid that it gets too monotonous. The following weeks will show how this will develop.