Welcome to the ring, it's rich and Adam.
Breaking down the fights with flair and passion.
Tag teams grappling, belts are clashing.
Finishes and factions catching action.
Hi, I'm rich and hey, I'm Adam.
Welcome to this week's episode of
Finishers and Factions NXT Edition.
Available on all of your favourite podcast platforms as an audible.
Here on YouTube where you get to hang out with us as well.
So without further ado, let's crack into NXT.
We're back talking about NXT this week from the Capital Wrestling Centre in Orlando.
Yeah, I mean after last week we said quite a lot that we didn't really have a lot of experience in consuming NXT content, especially more recent stuff.
So yeah, we found these especially last week difficult to watch.
And Rich, did you find it any easier this week or?
For the first half of it, I got quite into it.
The end of it was reasonable as well.
It was that middle section of this week that really kind of bored me.
It was a bit of a push through to kind of finish it.
And then, let's say with the start of the main event and then it got better as it got on.
But most of it was a bit lacklustre for me this week I think.
Yeah, fair enough. I know there were bits of it for me as well.
It's difficult to sort of pinpoint, but I know a bit like Raw, I could pick out my best match and my worst match, which will sort of come as we go through.
But NXT started a little bit differently than last week.
It actually did a recap of New Year's Evil, which was last week's NXT, which we went through.
We've got the episode up on the YouTube channel. Go and check it out.
Moving on to this week's episode, we started off with a promo, in-ring promo by a new NXT champion, Oberfemi.
Doing his victory lap.
And it just blows me away how over he is with the NXT crowd.
He's getting a lot of fun interaction without having to do an awful lot, which is always nice to see.
Yeah, and I think some of the things he was saying as well are quite, they resonated a lot with the crowd.
He was busy explaining how a lot of his stuff was what he'd accomplished, was backed by Destiny.
And now he finally sort of got there. It was a phrase he used a few times.
And that being, you know, the NXT champion was his destiny and he was finally there.
And, you know, with his normal sort of attitude from what we can tell over the last couple of weeks is, you know,
he's going to be that iron fist ruler of NXT and he's going to do with NXT as he sees fit with Ava's permission, of course.
Yeah, I mean, very sort of, I made note of the fact that there were two very different ends of the respect scale for his two opponents from last week.
Yes, Eddie Thorpe, zero respect for Eddie Thorpe, a deep seated hatred for him.
It came out last week as well. So that follows on from, you're not going to beat someone up and then come out next week and be like,
Oh yeah, no, I love the guy. I think it's brilliant.
Yeah, no, of course, but in the same breath, he did a number on Trick Williams as well and still came out very respectful of the former NXT champion.
He did acknowledge a lot of his titles and records that he held. But yeah, it was interesting to see the way he described it as well though.
Trick Williams is great holds all these records, but he found his ceiling.
Yeah, which he said a lot. He said pretty much all of the NXT locker room had this ceiling.
All of those were in different places, but Oberfemi feels that he doesn't have a ceiling at all.
It feels a bit like me to be fair. He's got a bit of an ego.
Well, yeah. And the fact that he's holding the strap tells us that he's got a right to feel that he's got a right to that ego.
Somebody else who's holding a strap who interrupted Oberfemi's victory lap was Tony DeAngelo, the current North American men's champion.
Yeah, well he came in and kind of told Oberfemi that he's basically welcome to the Big Leagues.
So it'd be interesting to see how big the Big Leagues are compared to Oberfemi. He's a big fellow.
Well, the big thing that Tony seemed to really want to get across was the fact that he was very interested in becoming a double champion.
Obviously current holder of the North American champion. That may mean we see him make a vie for the NXT championship soon as well.
But Tony DeAngelo has one big roadblock in his way and that roadblock's name is Ridge Holland, who we also saw come out.
So this thing between DeAngelo and Holland seemed to almost eclipse the fact that Oberfemi was in the ring. Had it not been for the fact that at the very end of this promo, we had Eddie Thorpe,
a blindside Femi with, I don't know if it was like a fireman's hose, I'm not going to lie, I'm not sure what that was, but he definitely came out and attacked him with some.
Bit steep when you get shown up in your own victory lap, isn't it?
Oh, 100%. But that was how we left that promo. And then we cut to a backstage locker room promo with Dante, Sean, Oromenza.
Yeah. I mean, Oromenza wasn't really a massive component in this promo as he seemed to leave as our other participant came in, which was Ethan Page, who I remember from last week,
and then he was in a bit of a pattern of back from the final boss, the Rock, on his NXT debut last week.
I don't know about you, Adam, I know we've both been pretty off topic when it comes to NXT, but Ethan Page reminds me very much of an MJF style figure.
It's a bit of an arrogant prick that seems to run his mouth quite a lot.
You see, I never really, I never likened him to MJF, and I will be honest, it's because I completely forgot about MJF because I'm not really watching AEW programming at the moment.
When I looked at Ethan Page, I was seeing early Miz, which was very similar.
Good show. Good show. Yeah, definitely. At least Ethan Page is allowed to get dressed in the locker room and not the cleaning closet.
Well, part of this promo was the fact that none of the rest of the NXT men's roster really want Ethan Page anywhere near them at the minute.
He seems to have been on a bit of a rampage, whereas all the Miz had to do was eat some chicken in the locker room and he got kicked out.
I can't believe they tossed him for that.
But Ethan Page came in bragging about his interactions with The Rock, doing really piss-poor impersonations in my view.
They were a bad one.
And yeah.
They were kind of funny in a way, I suppose.
But yeah, Chen seemed to take real exception to this, and that promo ends with him going to running off to Ava to set up a singles match later on in the night.
Which leads us on to another singles match that we had last night as well, which in one I was looking forward to.
So this was match one on the card. This was a number one contenders match, which I'd have to look back in my notes from last week on NXT,
but I'm pretty sure Stephanie Baker, one of the participants on this, was in a number one contenders match last week.
Yeah, she was. Yeah, so she won a Fatal Four way last week to become the number one contender to face Fallon Henley for her Women's North American Championship.
And technically she is the number one contender for that title.
But because Shotzi pinned Fallon Henley clean in the middle of the ring in the six woman tag match that they had last week on NXT, she kind of popped her head in and was like, look, I pinned a clean.
Like, surely that makes me number one contender.
Like, you don't pin the champion clean and not get something for it.
So Ava, the, you know, our general manager that we see quite a few times, not as much this week, I will throw out but see quite a lot.
Decided that Shotzi was going to go up against Stephanie Baker.
And it wasn't really for the number one contenders for the championship as such. It was who faces her next, which is a little bit weird because even if Stephanie loses, she's still the number one contender.
But Shotzi gets the next match in two weeks time in Atlanta for the NXT Center stage.
If she wins.
The same as Baker would if she was to win the match as well.
Yeah, definitely.
So we had one of the biggest things for me and I remember asking you this before we started recording was a severe lack of commentary up to this point.
It was, I remember sitting watching it and it took me quite a back.
I mean, the commentary team in any WWE promotion are generally pretty pronounced.
You know, they're there. They're there to tell the story.
And without that direction, it was really difficult to, it was really difficult to sort of get into to begin with.
And then all of a sudden about two to three minutes into the match, it's almost as if somebody on pause unmuted the commentary team.
All of a sudden they were back in the back in the game, but.
Waiting for Booker T to probably make a couple of remarks that maybe weren't needed.
Well, yes.
Most of Booker T's commentary.
But yeah, with with this match, it was.
It wasn't a bad match. It was lots of sort of high risk, which I'm to expect from Vaker and Shotzi.
It's very much in their wheelhouse.
Very entertaining.
I mean, Shotzi seemed very much in control in this match from what I remember from what I saw.
But Vaker definitely showed a more brutal savage side of her in this match that we didn't really get to see in the fatal four way last week.
I think too many people are in the ring at the same time.
You don't really get to see what each one of them has to offer.
So it is nice seeing people go one on one because you do have that extra ring space, the extra time to get things out.
And in a fatal four way, you've got three other people trying to cave your head in all the time.
And it doesn't matter who you are, you've got three other people trying to do it where one on one, you know, you've just got one to deal with.
Well, this is how it normally plays out.
But in this case, it seems that both JC Jane and current women's US title holder Fallon Henley wanted to get involved in trying to hand pick who they wanted to go through.
That's what I was saying. JC Jane did too much to interrupt.
I mean, she came running in and got laid out pretty quickly.
See, I put this down as a running in for a distraction. She was there. It was pure misdirection.
And you've got Fallon Henley sneaking in through the crowd to the other about shot to make her who I think was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
If she went to bounce back off the road, didn't she? So could it have been anyone?
It literally was a complete coin toss. I don't think there was anything, any sort of premeditation for it.
But Shotzi ends up picking the win because again, Faker in wrong place at the wrong time.
And we had the US title shot in a booked match set for two weeks at NXT in Atlanta, Georgia.
That's for Sandra Stage and that's Shotzi versus Fallon Henley for the Women's North American Championship.
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I was going to say I've seen Shotzi on wrestling on a number of different occasions.
She's she's a bit of an NXT veteran now. She's done some main roster stuff as well.
I think I've seen her in a few rumbles in the past. I'm sure she's made appearances there.
I might even see her again this year and that one that pops up.
She's got the Women's Royal Rumble coming up in two weeks, no, two, three weeks.
Yeah, definitely. But moving swiftly on, we went to another backstage promo this time to the Women's locker room
where Sol Ruka was commiserating Kalani Jordan who just doesn't seem to have been able to shake off the loss in the Fatal Four way last week.
No, neither of them really in the Fatal Four way. Like, I don't remember Kalani doing much in that match.
There was there's a few times that you could probably pinpoint if you rewatched it, but off the top of my head,
I can't really, I really think of anything. So I don't really know why she's being commiserated on losing a match that she wasn't really part of to remember anyway.
Yeah, I mean, I've got to admit between this week and last week, up to this point,
Kalani Jordan just seemed like a bit of a yawn to me, really.
When she first came out, there was nothing truly remarkable about her and considering that she was in this Fatal Four way with three other,
three other talents that I had no idea about. I mean, Kalani Jordan was the one that I cared the least about.
Out of those four and, yeah, I'm just seeing somebody who's just feeling a bit sorry for themselves, really.
And we had Zariah to give her the biggest dose of truth, basically tearing her puller head out of her ass.
Right.
And try and use all these negative feelings to push her to be better next time so she can actually win.
To which then you have Korra Jade coming in and basically saying, look, I should have won last week.
I had a slap, you know, slaps you stupid.
But again, I'll say it before I think we said it last week.
I'd say if you want to go back and check out what we said about that match last week, I'll put the episode link in the comments at the end.
None of them really stood out at all to be fair, apart from...
Stephanie Baker.
Yeah, apart from Stephanie Baker. Sorry, you'll have to excuse me now. Mine went blank and I didn't have my notes.
So to see her go into that next stage was nice, but yeah, the rest that I didn't really think much of.
But yeah, I mean, Korra Jade's main talent for me just seems to be running in her mouth.
And Kalani Jordan did the first semi-interesting thing that I've seen her do, which was an absolute huge bitch slap to Korra Jade.
Basically, she shut her mouth.
And we're possibly set for a match for them later on in the night as it goes.
Yeah, definitely.
But then that then led us up to the next point where we had yet another out of ring promo with Oberfemi and Ava having a conversation.
Yeah, conversation about Eddie Thorpe's attack right at the top of the show.
Basically, Femi wanting to give Thorpe an opportunity and Ava just not wanting to reward bad behaviour.
Ava very much sort of taking on a parent role here, which...
And they are like two toddlers these days.
I seem to remember making this comparison last week, but it was very much a case that because we saw Ava in every single freaking promo last week,
it felt like she was having to really sort of lend herself to let the show anbore through.
Thankfully, we don't see her that much this week, but very much sort of presence being felt.
And a little bit her being led by the talent rather than her leading the talent to a certain degree.
It's a bit easier for herself though, and in the long run it's going to make her a bit of a walk over and we could have an interesting sort of co-effect.
Yeah, I mean we had a couple of other faces in the background, one of them Mr Stone, who to me sort of came across as a bit of a spineless git to be honest.
It didn't really seem to...
It reminded me of the Snake from Jungle Book.
The car, just sort of slithering in, trying to basically make himself look as good as he possibly could.
Oh, so NXT is equivalent of The Miz?
Yeah, pretty much.
A lot of hate on The Miz this week.
Yeah, we really are ripping into The Miz something wrong, but after that match on Raw I think he fucking deserves it.
Yeah, anyway. But yeah, no, we ended up NXT title match for next week over Femi vs Eddie Thorpe, which hopefully will stop Thorpe from running his mouth,
but I severely doubt that will do anything to be quite honest.
I mean, you never know.
This...
But talking about people who like to run their mouth with Eddie Thorpe, that's the perfect run-in to our next match, which was Ethan Page and Dante Shen.
Yeah, so this was the match that was set up earlier in the night.
Basically, yeah, started with Ethan Page, who as you quite rightly put it, likes to run his mouth, and Dante Chen, who was really looking for an excuse to shut it, basically.
But I'd love to help him.
This match was over in two minutes.
Yeah, I'm really disappointed with that.
I didn't get it.
It was a squash match, and I think this is more playing into maybe Page's storyline a little bit.
I mean, we saw him remove Chen's boot after the match ended.
He's already forced so many injuries to other people, and he was trying to win to Chen.
Yeah, I mean, he's broken somebody's wrist.
Javon Nevins is out with an annihilated jaw, and now it looks like Chen is likely to be out with possibly a fracture or a break, something along those lines.
It's not going to be.
Look, you mentioned Javon Nevins with having that broken jaw.
He still busted Lightning and run his ass out there to save him.
He did. He came out trying to get some retribution, but unfortunately, because that jaw is still completely shattered, it just took one swift jab to the jaw.
He was dribbling crimson again when he all over the map.
Yeah, we got colour again this month. We got colour again on NXT this week, which some people like to see.
Some people aren't so fond of. I mean, I'm pretty impartial to it.
But Page is currently being painted as a complete sort of...
I was undecided as to whether to drive him as a sociopath or a psychopath. I'm not entirely sure.
He definitely falls into one of those two categories, but it's not something I know a tremendous amount about.
But yeah, he's definitely giving off some unstable vibes at the moment, which...
Yeah, he's out for...
He is out to annihilate the rest... truly annihilate the rest of the competition.
And eventually, we're going to need to come up with somebody or Ava's going to have to come up with somebody that can put a stop to him.
And that's where this story ends.
I think we might have that. I've got a feeling this, the person to stop Ethan Page going on his rampage, could possibly be the current NXT champion, Oberfendi.
I mean, he'd definitely be a candidate, but we know how the storylines generally tend to play out.
I think we're going to have... I think Javon Evans, he's already showed he's willing to try and jump back in the ring even before he's fully healed.
Like an unsanctioned thing, maybe.
It's going to end up being something...
If he does much more damage than what we've been told he's done to his jaw, he's going to be out of action for good.
So it could end up being a...
Final match.
A career match as it goes.
It'd be interesting.
But we'll have to see how that plays out as time goes on.
Definitely.
This promo, this next promo we talked about again before the recording started a little bit.
And we both sort of agreed that this one took us out of the loop a lot because it was very much peaks into everybody's life.
Well, so it started off with Dion Lennox and Nobby Fermi having a bit of a conversation.
We did also see a small cameo with Shawn Michaels in the background talking with Superstar.
I didn't recognise, but that was something I picked out.
I didn't spot that at all.
I'll have to go back and have a look.
I was going to say go back and watch it.
You'll spot him in the background.
If you know who that Superstar was, chat.
Or let us know in the comments.
If you know who that Superstar was, drop it like it's hot.
Get it in those comments.
Let us know.
100%.
But yeah, we had Dion Lennox who was expressing some interest in Oberfem in a potential future title shot.
One in an opportunity to try and take the strap off Oberfemmi.
But Fermi seems to want to do anything with that.
Everyone seems to want to tell him that they're going to take his strap.
But no one has really had the opportunity to put their money where their mouth is.
So I think we'll see Eddie Thorpe's getting that opportunity next week.
Yeah, this is it.
It will be Oberfemmi's first title defence.
And after that...
In this promo, we heard some rumblings of what sounded like an argument in the background.
We then got panned across to...
Is Rizzo and Sean Spears?
Yeah, Sean Spears and Adriana Rizzo.
Who, I think, Rizzo being possibly from New York.
That was the worst accent in the world.
That was bad, but to be fair, all I've got going through my head right now is the Muppets.
Rizzo sounds like a Muppet.
Yeah, no, it is, isn't it? He's got the hook nose.
Are you making a joke there?
That's not a nose joke on your accent.
No, Rizzo the rat is not the guy with the hook nose. He is the guy with the rat.
Oh no, the guy with the hook nose is Gonzo.
It genuinely wasn't a nose plug. It wasn't a nose plug, I swear.
Oh, we even on slowly. We then also had Izzy come in and talk.
You can let me get this joke out at least. If we were looking to plug your nose, we'd need bath plugs rather than nose plugs.
Now we can move on.
Right, now we get to talk about Izzy coming in and telling Sean Spears that no one likes him and no one wants him.
No one needs him.
I mean Sean Spears seems to be on a bit of a crusade to try and save Rizzo and Izzy from DiAngelo.
DiAngelo seems to be coming up quite a lot Tony DiAngelo, or a US champion.
Basically, I don't know if Spears is holding some kind of candle for her or something of that notion.
I'm waiting for the story to progress so I can try and work out what's gone on previously by what happens, futurely.
Well, we see that after Spears leaves, it's a case that...
...Dame is telling Rizzo that she doesn't owe anything to DiAngelo anymore, her and DiAngelo a square.
So something's obviously gone on that we're... that me and you are unaware of at this point.
Sounds about right to be fair, but like I said, we've only been watching NXT for the last two weeks,
so we are still trying to catch up on a lot of things that you guys know that we don't.
So if we've missed something or you can explain something to us that we've missed, then feel free.
That is definitely something we can do.
This promo seemed to pan again into something completely unrelated, which was Carmen Petrovic and Shanti Agones.
Basically...
Announcing that together?
It was shamelessly flirting, and I think they've been maybe skirting around the issue a little bit up to this point maybe.
Dancing with the devil a little bit too much, they've finally managed to get it done.
Yeah, 100%, and that was how that promo ended.
So yeah, well done to them pair I suppose. I don't really know what to say, what more to say about that.
And then it goes into the next promo.
Yeah, so we had a VT recap of the NXT Women's Championship match from last week, which was Roxanne Perez versus Julia.
And a confirmation that Julia will be appearing, making her debut appearance as NXT Women's Champion next week.
So it is the week of champions next week.
Is she defending next week? Did I miss an announcement for that?
They didn't confirm anything that I'm aware of just at the moment, unless it's in some of my notes from later in the episode.
We may circle back to that if I've come across it.
Yeah, no, I'll have to tell them. Have a look at them.
Then we went into an interview promo with the current WWE Tag Champs DIY, Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano, who were not in their rightful place, realistically.
These guys aren't supposed to be in NXT, but...
Well, I suppose they are NXT born and bred, wouldn't they?
Well, yeah, they are originally from NXT. They are some of the original brands.
They are two-time NXT Tag Champions, I believe Tommaso Ciampa corrected the interview week.
Yes, I believe she did.
But yeah, basically they are on site with NXT to come and view the main event, which is a Tag Team Championship match with the champions Bracciem versus OTN later in the year.
Later in the card, citing them as some potential competition in the future.
So DIY aren't feeling any real threat from any of the current crop in the main roster, which could be their downfall, really.
No, definitely could be.
But moving swiftly on again from that is going into the third match. It was a women's tag team match with Unholy Union, which is Isla Dawn and Aloha Fire?
I think that was the thing. I didn't write them down, I must admit.
There was a lot of things being said at the time that I just couldn't really work out who was who.
I don't know about you.
They've got like a really bad habit of bringing in one wrestler, disappearing off and talking about something else, and then bringing the other one in.
By the time I've kind of tried to adjust my notes and gone, right, so this is the match. Right, so this is the first team in, brilliant.
And then it's promo, right, I need to cross that out, put that promo in, write that person.
I forgot who that person's name was because I was walking and then I just got confidant.
So I must admit, I was running a little bit later watching it than I wanted to be, so it didn't really feel the need to go back and look at names that I can get for next week.
I always like to look up names, A, because I'm trying to learn the roster as I go, and it helps with possible storylines and things like that that I may come across.
So we had, yeah, On Holy Union versus The Meta Girls.
Now, I had to do some real research on this tag team, which was Jakara Jackson and Lash Legend.
Now, The Meta Girls are actually part of an ongoing faction called The Meta 4, which were established back in 2023.
So they've been going a good old while as far as the faction goes, operating within NXT and basically making a nuisance of themselves.
Isn't that the whole point of a faction?
I mean, yeah, pretty much.
Most of them tend to make a nuisance of themselves, look at DX, for example.
True, true, nobody made as much of a nuisance of themselves, but they put their nuisance making some good use during the Monday Night Wars at one stage.
Oh, yes they did.
I mean, most famously driving a tank up to the doors of WCW's Monday Night Wars taping and knocking on the door ever so politely.
Can we do that?
But back to the match at hand, this one was a number one contenders match for the NXT Women's Tag Champions.
The current NXT Tag Champions were not in attendance at this one, which is unusual, but I think they did allude to the fact that they were watching somewhere in the background where they might have been able to get a better view of what was going on.
My notes for this weren't very big to be fair.
I found what I was watching was quite even at the beginning of the section.
Remember me saying that I found some of the middle of the episode got a little bit tedious.
This match for me was what pulled me completely out of this episode.
I didn't find it held many highlights that are not very much in it that made it too memorable for me.
But I know that you look at different things within the wrestling match.
So what were your thoughts and opinions on this one?
I mean, I generally tend to find with this that it's a case that you could look at the two of us as a commentary team for WWE at this point.
I have a tendency to go by play by play and you're more of a color commentator.
You generally tend to, you'll focus on the overall match itself, whereas I'll dig into the detail a little bit more.
Which, hey, it works.
It works.
WWE.
Welcome to take on a job if you've got one Triple H.
Won't work an unstable somewhere.
Oh, 100%.
I mean, it's come out in the last few days.
Please, not NXT.
It's come out in the last few days that Corey Graves has decided the motion from what was it Monday night, Raw 2 NXT that just wasn't worth the.
Yeah, he's not.
With written on.
Well, you say that there's been a few there was a statement just before we started recording this section from the WWE high revs.
The base he just said that if he's telling you it was a work, then he's probably going to build it into a work at the time he was definitely shooting.
So that'd be interesting to see.
I don't think unless they make an angle at the Corey Graves thing, we won't hear too much more about it.
They'll fire him and he'll go to social media and say something about it.
Or you'll just go to AEW and tell everybody exactly what's happened.
So it's all perfectly possible at this point.
But the less said about Corey Graves is he does not feature in this number at this women's tag team championship at this number one contenders match at all.
But Meta Girls.
Meta Girls seem to dominate quite early doors.
They were the powerhouse.
Well, I say they lash legend was an absolute powerhouse in this match.
It seemed to be a bit untested metal from what I saw or what I was gathering from the commentary team.
It's kind of a case that lash hasn't had many matches in this and she's still a bit of an unproven element, but very much sort of very much got some got some good licks in on this one.
And one of the big highlights of this match for me was sort of a high risk totem diving move that.
Standing on the shoulders job.
Yeah, that was good.
Yes, standing on the shoulders and turning it into a cross body.
Some some aspects like that were were interesting.
Not seen anyone else try something like that for a while.
It backfired on Meta Girls on this occasion.
It was a good concept, but it backfired giving unholy union a brief advantage.
But yeah, they just overall unholy union just didn't really start a chance against lash legend.
I didn't really see much of Jakara Jackson in this other than looking like she just sniffed a fart really.
That's what I was the overall get in.
Just got it. Jakara Jackson to me just seems to have a very severe case of resting bitch face.
Or resting stank face depending on where which way the winds blowing, I suppose.
But yeah, not really much to go on on this match met a girls came out with the wind, which puts them in the number one contenders spot for the NXT women's tag champs a match.
I'm sure we will see either in the next few weeks, possibly even left until the next NXT pay-per-view.
Yeah, and I think it will probably more than likely be two weeks time at center stage in Atlanta.
Possibly or we could be waiting until vengeance day, which is taking place in Washington DC on the 15th of February.
That should be interesting. Something else is coming up on that day as well. I can't remember off the head what it is.
I mean, it's the day after Valentine's Day, so...
Yeah, I mean today it's just because I've got work on Saturday.
It's the worst morning in history to be a hotel porter that has to clean rooms.
Oh, the old hospitality joke in the world. You don't work as a hotel cleaner on on February 15th.
Especially not if Bonnie Blue's been in your establishment.
Oh, well, I don't think you'd need to. I think you'd probably just be better off burning the room to be quite honest.
Yeah, let's not get bogged down in that. It sounds like enough people have been bogged down in that as it stands at the moment anyway.
But talking about bogged down, we get to talk with Ava again when she's busy watching Lexus King get the plate changed on his massive cup.
That he won last week at NXT's New Year's Evil.
Yeah, it was a congratulatory moment that was sadly interrupted by the No Quarter Catch crew.
They were pegged us in the little bars that appear below their name.
But this was actually Charlie Dempsey, the former Heritage holder.
Who Lexus King beat last week?
Yeah, and Ren Sinclair, who seemed to be ironing out more for a fight than Charlie Dempsey did.
I think Dempsey was pretty much content to just say, do you know what, actually?
Fucking hell.
But Ren Sinclair was very much talking about the incidental contact that they had at the end of their match.
The head to the plums was never going to take that to the sting out of that.
And I think Ren Sinclair is stinging about that more than Dempsey was.
I mean, he'd take the rematch if he was going to do it.
It didn't seem too bothered.
And Ava seemed to agree after a little bit of cajoling.
Even that was cut short from a crash into the corrugated steel outside, where a parking lot brawling shoes between Tony D'Angelo and Ridge Pollard.
Right, I've said that I've struggled with NXT the last two weeks.
I will throw this out there.
I want to see what they do with that.
I know I've got a rough idea what they do with it, but I can't wait to see what they do with it.
This actually has a little bit of excitement for me within this, because this feels like it's a new story.
So for me, this could be the entry to NXT that I need, and that could be Rich Holland and Tony D'Angelo.
I was hoping otherwise this is going to be a really short segment each week.
But we went from that after that.
I'd been sort of broken up a little bit to match four, which was a singles match made earlier in the night.
Felaani Jordan, Corra Jade.
Felaani Jordan and Corra Jade.
You bastard, you got me too.
I'm just not feeling the reasoning behind Jordan's push at the moment.
I'm just going to throw this out there, because we've both just yawned.
If we got you, tell us.
Oh, 100%.
If we just got you.
Did we get you yawned in too?
Interestingly enough, since this was broadcast, it's come out as quite a wide-rallying thing, and you'll see a lot of content creating content around this deal.
But TNA and WWE have signed a multi-year talent exchange deal, which is absolutely huge.
I mean, WWE NXT and TNA did something similar earlier, sort of midway through last year, which was really successful for them.
I'm really glad they're going back to the well, and sort of going back to this.
The image I saw was rather interesting.
And I think it was the one I saw you, and it was the one of the hardy boys with the TNA tag titles around their shoulders, hinting they could make an appearance somewhere at some time to defend the TNA tag titles in WWE.
So, that being interesting.
As we record this, so we're recording this on a Friday, this Sunday, so Sunday the 19th of January is TNA Genesis.
One of the matches on that card is the hardy boys defending their tag team championships.
The challenger's names escape me right at this moment, although I can see the vacant look on Rich's eyes tells me that he's doing a bit of research.
I'll keep chatting.
The hardy boys are facing the Rascals, which is Trey Miguel and Zachary Wentz, for the tag team, or the TNA World Tag Team Championships.
Actually, I've looked at that Genesis card looks really interesting.
Well, I was about to say that the Genesis card I was looking at earlier on, and it is looking really good.
I mean, we're big fans of one of the main events of Genesis, which is Nick Nemeth, who WWE fans will know by a slightly different name.
Golf Ziggler?
Yes, 100%. And, I mean, Rich, do you believe?
Well, you've just got to say his name and he appears.
I think that there's going to be a lot of people saying that name at Genesis on a night.
It's Joe Hendry.
It certainly is. And a bit of backstory for anybody that doesn't know why Rich has broken down in his little girl giggles.
It's because he has basically overplayed Joe Hendry's entry music.
He does not enjoy it at all.
Shantel does not believe in Joe Hendry.
He does not believe in Joe Hendry at all.
No, he does not.
The reason I bought up the TNA multi-year deal is because one of the things we see during the Jordan vs Jade match this evening is the current TNA knockouts champion,
Masha Slamovich. It is in the crowd and I did see something that came out after NXT was broadcast circulated by WWE, I believe,
where there's a small meeting between Slamovich and Slamovich and Shawn Michaels backstage, which again, I think if you look back on it with the knockouts champion in situ on the night of NXT,
followed up by that little backstage promo that WWE posted out on social media, I think anybody could have predicted this multi-year deal with TNA.
Yeah, so Masha Slamovich has got a match against Rosemary in a Clockwork Orange House of Fun match for the TNA knockouts world championship.
No, I have no idea what that is, but I am half tempted to give it a watch next week just for a few matches, because I really want to know what that is.
So there's so much that is just so intriguing about Genesis' card.
Unfortunately, it's not Genesis' card that we're actually supposed to be talking about at the moment. It is Jordan and Jade's match, but I think the fact that we've spent so long fixated on Genesis' card is...
...shows us the quality of this Kalani Jordan vs. Korra Jade match to be fair.
Very evenly contested match, not sort of horrifically exciting. There was no heat built in, there was no build up to this match other than like the fifth promo of the evening where this match was,
the seeds for this match were sown. It very much had vibes of Miz and Sami Zayn from Raw, the first one I've ever heard in this episode.
And the finish was poor. The sky used to eye-rake and a push and a pin to be fair.
Korra Jade picked up the win on this one. I mean, Jordan towards the end of this match became slightly more interesting than that.
I saw her a bit more of a vicious streak, but it just wasn't worked to her advantage. It seemed to be that she sort of... the red mist descended.
She lost sight of everything, which is what allowed Korra Jade to pull off this eye-rake finish.
And yeah, just a very sort of poor match and I'm not going to wait until the end. That was my worst match of this card, pretty much.
Kalani Jordan vs. Korra Jade in a singles match just wasn't there for me. Not at all.
But yeah, we were then treated to a social media video that Eddie Thorpe made earlier in the evening and posted to his socials about celebrating the fact that he got a title shot next week.
I don't think we're doing much good, but, you know, let him have his fun, I suppose.
It'd be interesting to know if you recall... it was difficult for me to tell from what I saw, but I'd be interested to know if he did that before... because he seemed to be out in a parking lot somewhere.
I don't know if that meant that he was out in the same parking lot that D'Angelo and D'Angelo was having a brawl in earlier in the episode, but...
Yeah, we were then treated to another backstage promo ahead of the tag title match where we saw Fraxium, Nathan Frazier and Axium backstage being approached by Josh Briggs and Yoshiki Inamaru.
Which kind of stopped my fitness with a bit of a back-end brawl between Briggs and Inamaru and BTM. Fraxium kind of didn't really have much to say or do with it.
They disappeared and kind of went to do their warm-up, I suppose. There was everyone else that tended to get involved and kind of got on with it.
Yeah, and this sort of... I think this may have set up a possible feud in the future, potentially. But I'm not sure who the feud was between, because there didn't seem to be a clear cut direction to it.
Yes, OTM and Frazier and Inamaru were the ones brawling by the end of it, but I'm not seeing the direction in that for it.
We were also, following this, we were told about, or given a small VT about Vengeance Day in Washington, which is the next PLA. We were also told that Trick Williams had put out a statement that he's considering his next move, which I suppose means that he may be at the NXT title picture for a little while.
Yeah, and this sort of fed into the main event, the men's NXT Tag Team Championship match between Fremont, Bronco, Nima and Lucian Price versus the current champs, Fraxium, who were in the promo beforehand.
And do you know what? I wasn't mad at this match. It wasn't a great match. I'm not saying it was five stars. The Observer's going to be writing about this for years to come sort of match, but for a main event on a sort of a so-so card, it was decent.
It was alright. It warmed up towards the end. You know, it was quite a fast-paced crowd, a fast-paced crowd, a fast-paced start to the match. So we're trying to hype the crowd up a bit, which not surprising after that Kalani Jordan match, but by the grass.
Talking about the crowd, you had DIY in there, the current SmackDown Tag Team Champions just keeping an eye on what's kind of going on. And I suppose what could be, prospectively, you know, both of these teams could be on main roster by the end of the year and they're a potential threat to the straps around their shoulders.
I will be honest, from what I saw of Fraxium, as much as they are the current Tag Team, the current and they defended their Tag Team Championships admirably during this match, especially as they were kept trying to keep the pace as quick as possible.
You've got OTM, I have more of a ground-up and style. We're just trying to keep it as slow as they possibly could. And we're succeeding up to a point. But I mean, Fraxium had some kind of high-flying defensive offense thing going, which I couldn't quite wrap my head around.
I'm not seeing them as main roster material. I think they've reached their ceiling, is that what they would say?
Yeah, I don't think they'll move further past this, regrettably, because they're too very capable performers. But yeah, maybe as singles they'll make their way up to the main roster, but I just don't think as a Tag Team they've got it in them to go much further.
But yeah, the OTM vs Fraxium match was my match of the night. We've still got one more bit to go through, which was the in-ring promo for Roxanne Perez, which had been teased throughout the night.
Now, this is where it turns into a little bit of a monologue, because I know you're not terribly well up on this promo towards the end.
No, I was cooking dinner and this bit was on and wasn't really concentrating, didn't really have much of a time to go back to it. So I made sure I got through all the matches and the majority of the promos, but I didn't get to finish this week's episode off in time to be able to get this bit done.
This is where we blend into a little bit of a segment called Adam's Story Time, where Adam tells Rich all about the promo.
Story Time with Adam?
We've had CBBC's Bedtime Stories with Cody Rhodes, so why not Story Time with Adam?
Yeah, I know.
There we go. BBC, if you need someone to read a book for you, add our keys available.
100% and you show me the money and I'll do it. 100%.
So, just one thing, Stay Away from Children's Hospital Awards for about 20 years, right? We don't want any accusations to his lead.
Yes, I definitely won't fix anything.
Right, but yeah, basically Perez was out recapping a tenure as NXT Women's Champion, basically saying how by the very virtue of her being champion, she raised the bar on what NXT Women's Division was.
NXT Women's Division seems quite heavily featured within NXT programming over the last few weeks.
Yeah, it does.
She was very gracious in defeat, wasn't saying that Julia blindsided her or used any dirty tactics.
We both watched the match from last week. There definitely wasn't any dirty tactics involved.
But the biggest, I mean, I think this is leading into a bit of a Perez heel turn, possibly.
Or maybe even a main roster elevation. I've got a feeling she may well be headed to SmackDown.
The reason I think she may well be headed to SmackDown is because we had a surprise entrant in this little in-ring promo when Bayley made an appearance.
Ahead of a SmackDown Women's Championship.
PVL Bayley's on NXT again.
Yeah, Bayley made a triumphant and well received return to NXT.
Oh, nice accent.
Just trying to give some sage advice really, just said, look, rocks out, it's not the end of the world.
Regardless of what you think, it's kind of a case that the women's division will continue rising regardless of whether you're wearing the belt or not.
And yeah, we had the beginnings of a fight breakout by the end of the episode.
Basically between Bayley and Perez, which is why I've got an odd feeling we're going to see Perez elevated to main roster soon.
She's going to pursue a feud with Bayley.
Being an interesting one.
I mean, Perez could be ending up with a skyrocket sort of ascent to main roster where she could end up immediately becoming number one contender for the SmackDown Women's Championship.
Yeah, that's it.
I mean, I've already, as we've gone through, I've given my match of my worst and best matches.
Rich, any standouts?
I think between for me that I'm stuck between two for the worst match of the night.
I think it's metaphor versus Unholy Union, or it was the Kalani Jordan Corridor match and I'm probably going to swing more towards Kalani Jordan.
Match of the evening for me.
I don't know, it's a difficult one to be fair.
I'm probably going to go with, probably going to go with the Stephanie Baker Shotzi match to be fair.
Okay, you didn't tell me anything that I wasn't expecting there realistically.
I don't know, you weren't overly enamoured with the main event of the evening.
That ended up being my best match and yeah, I think we sort of agree on the worst match of the evening.
Overall, I've got to admit the last two weeks of watching NXT, my biggest frustration with it all,
aside from not knowing any of the storylines that have happened before the NXT era,
or the Netflix era, sorry, is that all of the production value goes to Raw and SmackDown.
And I'm not going to sit here and say that they shouldn't have that production value,
but NXT, if you're not getting the love they need, then it's not a case of bad writing or anything like that.
We spent two promos and half a match at the beginning with no commentary.
And there've just been over New Year's Evil and this week's NXT, just so many little things.
And again, this is where I have a bit of a penchant for the smaller details,
which can really disengage with the programme.
And some of the technical errors that they've made in just the broadcast and the way that its package just seem to be painful,
I'm finding it difficult to sort of connect to a degree.
Yeah, I'd agree with that. Right, I think I'm finished with NXT. What about you?
Yeah, we've run out of programme for NXT, so let's move on. Let's move on to SmackDown.
That we can.
Well, that's it from me.
And from me too. Thank you all for watching.
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Goodbye.