Welcome to the ring, it's rich and atom.
Breaking down the fights with flair and passion.
Tag teams grappling, belts are clashing.
Finishes and factions catching action.
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening to another edition of Finishes and Factions Does NXT.
We review all of the action from this week's NXT episode coming to us out of Orlando, Florida and the WWE Performance Centre.
This was the first NXT after the Royal Rumble although NXT does not have a massive hand in PLEs for the main roster.
They do sometimes make appearances as we saw from a number of different superstars in the Royal Rumble match.
As we will cover as it goes through the match card today.
And again I say this whenever this happens, unusually we are not starting NXT with a promo in ring, out ring, out in the car park.
Nowhere near that, we are starting with in ring action going in for a women's singles match between Stephanie Vaquir vs. JC Jane.
Accompanied to the ring by Fallon Henley and Jasmine Nix.
And this was sort of built to us as a bit of a warm up match for Vengeance Day which happens on the 15th of February.
We will be doing an episode around that PLE for the NXT stars as it's important that we do that as well as for the main roster in my view.
And you know what, I'm not mad at this match, it was a technically sound match, seemed evenly contested early on.
And I mean Henley and Nix getting involved early on as well.
But there were some good high spots on this match as well, some really good nice spots especially from Vaquir who was playing sort of hopscotch with the ring ropes which I thought was, showed some phenomenal agility and balance.
And even she starts looking sort of dominant early on, sort of midway through the match.
Vaquir pulls a superplex on JC Jane in ring and even manages to pull off a 619.
And yeah, I mean it's, let's see what else did we have for this.
So Nix on a late pinfall interruption hitting at Jane handing Vaquir the victory.
So Vaquir building up a ton of momentum going into vengeance day where she faces Fallon Henley for the North American NXT Championship.
And again, we'll be covering that as we go.
We then move to a pre-recorded backstage VT with Jakara Jackson and Lash Legend arriving in the locker room to be met by Zariah and Sol Ruka.
And Zariah wasting no time in pointing out they came up short on their women's tag team title shot last week on NXT where they faced Naomi and Bianca Belair.
And from the best of my memory without reviewing my notes from last week, they put up a decent fight considering their NXT.
They're developmental. We have to remember this about NXT.
But yeah, that went by as we would have expected it to.
At Ruka trying to play peacekeeper and sort of being ignored. Zariah being all talk although she was not in the rumble at all.
Sort of points out that Lash came up at Lash Legend came up short in the rumble as well.
Nobody really expects an NXT star to win at the Royal Rumble, although I did make my thoughts clear on Monday night on Monday night Raw's episode that I thought that I thought that
Roxanne Perez should have been the winner of the women's Royal Rumble, but that would have been to call her out of NXT essentially.
She's still got business in NXT so I can sort of understand the decision.
I still don't think Charlotte Flair should have won, but yeah, no less said about that the better.
We also see Gigi Dolan, Shotzi and Tatum Paxley pop up out of nowhere seemingly.
Paxley giving Jackson and Legend props for their valiant effort and Jackson tells Dolan, Shotzi and Paxley to handle their business and they will see the winner.
So that sort of alludes to the fact that maybe Dolan, Shotzi and Paxley have a match with Zariah and Sol Ruka later on in the evening, but we will come to that.
We then go to the men's locker room where we have Sarah Schreiber interviewing Oberfemi NXT's current heavyweight champion, talking about his triple threat title defense at Vengeance Day,
which he seems thoroughly sort of unfazed by where he will of course be facing Austin Theory and Grayson Waller.
But Femi saying that Ava may run NXT but he runs the ring and will prove that Austin Theory and Grayson Waller do not belong in the ring with him, which is a perfectly acceptable mindset to have as he goes ahead to face both Waller and Theory in a tag team match
on the main event of NXT this evening where Femi will be tag teaming with Trick Williams who they've had some beef recently.
Trick Williams being the former NXT world champion was dethroned by Oberfemi at New Year's Evil at the beginning of January.
We then go to in-ring where we see Lexus King, the current Heritage Cup champion, looking like he's been attacked with spray paint.
I'm not going to lie. Again, it's the similar thing that I said about Seth Rollins' outfits.
I'm not sure who told Lexus King that he looked good doing that but I can surely advise him that he doesn't as somebody with no style whatsoever.
I'm here to tell you Lexus King, you look like a douche quite frankly.
But again, we digress. Lexus King starts his promo bigging himself up showing a very self-absorbed side to him which I think he seems to have been trying to separate himself from more recently.
A few members of the crowd trying to drone him out seemingly and even gives props to William Regal for Lexus King's success.
William Regal being a bit of a mentor to Lexus King before he reclaimed the Heritage Cup makes mention of Ryan Leith, a former NFL quarterback who apparently tried to give King some advice.
I've said previously in previous episodes of Finishes and Factions that I am not an NFL guy.
My normal co-host Rich would probably be able to tell you a little bit more about Ryan Leith but I am not Rich and Rich as I said at the beginning is still off ill.
We're hoping to have him back soon but for now, Lexus King then goes to make mention of his dad, the late Brian Pillman
who we've mentioned on the NXT episodes before. It tells us how he's not changed but he's not his father either.
So he's trying to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to be.
Does anything that's needed to win character but not wanting to be his father either.
Apologies.
King says that he's going to change the format of how the Heritage Cup is defended as well.
Up to now we've seen it in a 2 out of 3 falls type match but with a few twists.
In 6 minute rounds with 20 to 30 seconds break between rounds a fall would ultimately end the match or end the round.
And we're in a 2 out of 3 falls match. It's only pin falls and submissions but ring outs are also counted among those bits and pieces as well.
This is where we see an unusual return. A theme song that we should all be familiar with as WWE fans.
Fandango returns to NXT.
To an absolutely immense pop for a guy that when he was on the main roster was while he had some viral moments was not an over superstar at all.
In fact, King goes on quite early on in the conversation to point out that at one point Fandango was playing Dress Up with Tyler Breeze.
But also made the same observation that I did that at least he never had to have his face painted on.
And yeah, it was... we've got a few more bits and pieces from this promo to go just yeah.
It's important to realise Fandango is one of the first superstars we've seen from TNA. Total non-stop action wrestling.
Whereas we know him as Fandango, TNA fans will know him as JDC of the system.
And next week, Lexus King will be against JDC for the NXT Heritage Cup Championship.
We then went from that into the second match of the card which saw Ridge Holland versus Stax of the D'Angelo family.
And Stax came equipped with the D'Angelo family in tow.
As well as having Shawn Spears, Nico Vance and Brooks Jensen in an overwatch position.
Now this is something we've seen a couple of times when NXT is brought to us out of the performance centre.
They have a bit of a high rise platform where generally third parties will come out, watch matches from there
and sort of otherwise make their presence known without being able to get directly involved in the matches.
And Stax, this match came to us after I think it was last week on NXT.
Ridge Holland and Stax had some crosswords.
Had some crosswords all to do with sort of Izzy Dayman.
What her involvement is with the D'Angelo family. She says she's not in it but she's very much involved in it.
Her and Tony D'Angelo going away having secret conversations. It is a very confusing circumstance to be sure.
And hopefully we will get some more answers as time rolls on.
But as for this match, Stax comes out the gate hard.
Ridge Holland ends up shoving Stax into the steel steps.
Ridge getting in Stax's face and doing so sort of gives up some of the momentum for the match.
But all in all sort of a very even exchange between the two.
They're getting sort of equal timing in control of the match.
The momentum shifts quite evenly.
At one point Stax goes top rope, gets pushed off to the floor by Holland.
And Holland comes out to retrieve Stax, shoves Tony D'Angelo away who is there to check on the underboss.
D'Angelo gets heated and tries to get in the ring but is stopped by the ref.
And this is where we see Izzy Dayman running in to try to interfere but Holland saw it coming.
This has happened before when Ridge Holland has challenged for the title that D'Angelo family are currently holding on to.
And we've seen this before where she will come in and interfere in the match
and basically tip the scale in the D'Angelo family's sort of way of thinking in their direction
to basically give them the match and allow them to hold on to that title that they hold on to so very dearly.
But Stax still tries to take advantage of the distraction, tries to steal a win but fail
and Holland hits him with the redeemer for a win.
So the D'Angelo family take the L in that match up.
And we move on from there to a backstage promo from the locker room where Fraxium,
which is at the current NXT Tag Team Champions of Axiom and Nathan Fraser are confronted by Josh Riggs and Yoshiki Inamora.
But before Riggs and Inamora make their entrance, we hear over here the end of a conversation between Axiom and Nathan Fraser
about how they're going to be defending their Tag Team titles again on TNA, but this time versus the Nemeth brothers.
Now Nemeth sort of perked my ears up a little bit as I am aware that a former WWE superstar is currently performing in TNA as Nick Nemeth.
If you don't know, we know him as Dolph Ziggler and has been enjoying quite a bit of success over in TNA from what I understand
and is battling alongside his real-life brother who also appeared in WWE just not quite to the same extent as Dolph did himself.
We knew him as Briley Pierce, but in TNA he is known as Ryan Nemeth.
They're going to be defending theirs in the Impact Zone at TNA, if that is still what TNA's arena is called.
Briggs and Inamora are basically in, coming to try and taunt and intimidate for a Tag titles match.
Fraxium aren't really having any of it. They tell the pair to go out.
You've done a lot of complaining and you need to go out, actually win a match to deserve a title shot.
I think we saw where we can see where this might be going as both Briggs and Inamora leave separately to go and find opponents for them to face in a match
and then to obviously go to Ava to get it sanctioned.
Now as that promo finishes we are brought into a match at the third match of the card which was a women's tag team match
which saw Sol Ruka and Zarya versus Jiji Dolan and Tatum Paxley accompanied to the ring by Shotzi.
I didn't really get a massive amount of notes for this match.
I got sucked into it but I'm not sure what sucked me into this match.
Some of the main points that I took away from this match was that Zarya is a complete powerhouse.
Jiji Dolan and Tatum Paxley are vastly outpowered by Zarya.
Having said that, Tatum Paxley managed to pull off an impressive spider inside submission hold
which had never seen before but it was odd.
It looked to be as though it would be more painful for the supplier than the applied.
It was ever such an odd manoeuvre but ultimately Sol Ruka with a front flip DDT gets Jiji Dolan down for a three count
and Sol Ruka and Zarya have their hand raised at the end of this match.
We went on from that match backstage to an interview with Trick Williams by Sarah Schreiber
where Williams saying him and over Femi don't need a game plan for their match in the main event
that Williams wants to tell both Waller and Theory that he's going to drop their bitch ass
and tells Femi that his receipt is coming.
This was actually quite a controlled response in comparison to some of the things we've seen from Trick Williams
in previous weeks since he lost his title and seems to be out of the running for a future title shot moving forward.
But one thing that I did notice that had nothing to do with Trick Williams or anything like that was that we saw the screen in the background
showing what I can only describe as a colour card saying about vengeance day.
Now at the end of NXT last week we saw this very same colour card being shown
and it seems to be very likely hinting at maybe a return or a debut of some kind
that we have to wait until vengeance day to find out what it is
and I'm genuinely interested to find out who it is they're teasing so hard to go from there.
Now the next part of the card was what was described as a women's NXT championship title match summit
between Bayley, Roxanne Perez and Julia, the current NXT women's champion.
Now Bayley comes out first to the fanfare we've gotten used to seeing Bayley come out with
when she comes out to the ring in NXT being a former NXT four horse women
and doing rather remarkably well out of it.
We then see Roxanne Perez come out who has officially secured her spot in history
as now being the superstar with the longest singular run time in a match ever
and she makes no bones about making sure that she mentions about that.
So she is the iron superstar for the Royal Rumble moving forward
and as Roxanne Perez comes out she actually stops Julia's entrance.
She stops Julia from coming out so that she can brag about this Rumble record
and Perez talks about how she eliminated Julia in the Rumble itself as they both partook.
Perez sort of painting Bayley as a title seeking nomad
as we have seen Bayley work horsey in the WWE making appearance at all three television shows
week in, week out and Burnout has got to be on the horizon for BBL Bayley
as my co-host has taken to calling her or bubble butt Bayley.
I mean either way that ass is banging. Let's face it.
But Bayley shuts down Perez. Perez is run by calling her spoiled and entitled
and I'm not really sitting here disagreeing with her.
I think I'd be a lot more sort of, I think I'd be a lot more sympathetic to Perez
if it weren't for the fact that as a viewer viewing from home
I have to listen to Booker T constantly just dribble for praise like vomit from a hungover person's mouth
out of his mouth. It just, yeah, it makes little to no sense to me as to how that works
but hey how, what are you going to do?
And Bayley says that she, so Perez basically makes a crack at Bayley saying
oh you don't want anybody to surpass you, you think that you're the golden standard
and Bayley basically comes back and says do you know what, actually I want you to surpass me
the entire point of doing all of this is to have you surpass me
and Bayley talks about sort of building one of the first rings in the performance centre
with her very own hands and how she's built the developmental ring
the developmental branch of WWE from the inside out
and Bayley talks about having promo class with Dusty Rhodes
just down to the side of where they were in the ring just then
and Bayley also talks about how if she's had setback she just continues to push on
she doesn't sit there and bitch about it although I will be honest
I think we have seen he or Bayley do that on a number of occasions
but we're not here to fact check that or maybe we are, are we?
Are we here to fact check?
Perez talks about her ambition of going on to win all the titles in all the brands
she wants to just absolutely steamroll over the competition
and I mean both Perez and Bayley talk about going to Raw
so I think there's definitely, they're definitely building up to Perez being called up to the main roster
I just think that maybe they could have done it at the Royal Rumble but again, yeah
at this point Charlotte Flair makes her appearance
we knew that she was going to be in attendance at NXT
and a former NXT star herself
and yeah, I mean it's Charlotte Flair
I've made my feelings on her perfectly clear so I'm not going to continue to harp on about it
but Julia also makes an appearance at this point
comes to the ring with purpose obviously not wanting to sort of be left out of the title
left out of the picture altogether
and this is just when verbal shots are fired across everybody's bow
Julia comes in basically backs up Bayley against Perez
and then takes a shot at Bayley anyway
and yeah, it just turns into a bit of anarchy really
I mean Charlotte reminding last time she won the Rumble that she chose to face the NXT Women's Champion at WrestleMania and won
so maybe we could see Charlotte Flair being shipped off to NXT
and if that happens it may be the last time that Finisher's and Faction's ever covers NXT as a brand
just so that we can get away from Charlotte Flair
but regardless, Charlotte congratulates Perez on being the Iron Woman
then points out that if she is champion of choice then she will lose
Charlotte giving props to Julia but bakes herself up more
I mean it's all what we come to expect from Charlotte Flair realistically
it comes with the territory
but this is where we see Cora Jade come in for a sneak attack to Bayley and Julia
and yeah Jade attempts to go after Perez but Perez ducks out
and Jade left lifting the title above her head before taking a last swing at Bayley
I mean Cora Jade is very much taken a... seems to have taken a bit of a back seat in recent weeks
and now is determined not to do that at all
but we'll move on as I think we're working our way up to the main event
but we've got a few other bits to go over before that
so yeah let's dive into those just now
and we go from in-ring to backstage where we see Ava, Ethan Page, Javon Evans
and a buttload of security
where they all seem to be wanting to have a bit of a scrap really
I mean Ava is there trying to keep the peace with the security
and we've got obviously Javon Evans and Ethan Page
that stood on either side of Ava
we know that in past weeks
Javon Evans has currently been out on the injured list
and the use of Ethan Page absolutely decimating his jaw on more than one occasion
to the point that Javon Evans has actually got his jaw surgically wired shut at the moment
but Ava in a surprise move actually wants to end up suspending Javon Evans
but is forced to reconsider when Ethan Page asks for a match as a punishment
as opposed to suspension which isn't a bad way of being able to protect a fellow superstar's livelihood realistically
but Ava basically declares saying that they can have a match at vengeance day
if Javon Evans is medically cleared by that point
so we've got another match for vengeance day set
but we've got to wait and find out what happens
if Javon Evans can be medically cleared within that time
we then go to a different area of backstage where we see Hank and Tank talking to Josh Briggs about a match next week
and this was obviously off the back of Briggs and Inamora being told
that they need to get a match win under their belt before they can even be considered for a tag title match
Hank and Tank seem to agree as the camera pans over to the DiAngelo family and Izzy Dame as Ridge Holland approaches
to say he could take the North American title and the only reason he did not do it last time is because of Izzy Dame
which is a fair shout in all fairness, it's not something that's completely outside the realms of possibility
as Ridge Holland as we've seen is brutal enough and capable enough to be able to take Tony DiAngelo out without any outside interference
but Holland points out Spears and Koeh are in the background
Sean Spears obviously seems to have a bit of an obsession with more so Izzy Dame than the DiAngelo family
but it's just because they seem to run in the same circles, we're still not sure how that's playing out
as it's still sort of bubbling in the background a little bit and it's occasionally sort of mentioned
but we're also teased that we could end up having a cage match between Holland and DiAngelo for the North American title
this could be something that happens at Vengeance Day, we don't know but it would be incredibly interesting to find out how that plays out
so we will wait to find out what's going on
we then move on to match four of the card which was a women's singles match which is between Kalani Jordan and Carmen Petrovic
who comes out to the ring with Ashanti Adonis who she's currently romantically involved in within the storyline
I don't know if that extends to outside the storyline but within the storyline they're certainly involved
and now I've gone on record in the past and said that Kalani Jordan is very much a boring sort of, she's a...
boring, I'm trying to think of the right word, she's a... she's generic
she's not necessarily boring but she's generic and it just doesn't mean that, it means that I'm struggling to find a reason to like her, to root for her
but as time goes on we're starting to see a different side to Kalani and I'm not mad at it
we seem to be seeing a much more aggressive style and a much more emotional response from her, I'm not going to call her unhinged because I don't think she is
but she certainly seems to be getting to that way
and yeah this match is a perfect embodiment of it
both women, both Kalani and Carmen showing aggressive style during this match
we see that midway through the match Jordan dives out of the ring and instead of hitting Carmen ends up getting Adonis for it
Jada Parker who Kalani Jordan has had some issues with in the past as well as Carmen Petrovic
comes out to basically distract Jordan I think majority of it is
and let's see, Jordan catapulted across the ring by Petrovic
oh this was the, yeah this was off the top turnbuckle I believe
I'm not even entirely sure how to characterise this move but it was phenomenal for somebody who is as small as Carmen Petrovic is to be able to get that much distance and height
on somebody who's going to be as, she's physically fit, she's not huge but she is muscly dense
and that is Kalani Jordan as I believe that she is a former gymnast so there is probably 0% body fat on that woman realistically
Jordan ends up hitting a running angle slam which was actually quite nice to see
we haven't seen an awful lot of angle slams since Kurt Angle's retirement
Jordan with a submission victory to Petrovic but because of Jordan's unsportsmanlike conduct
and what we mean by this or what I mean by this rather is after the match ends and Jordan gets the submission victory over Carmen
she reapplies the submission hold again in an attempt to just try and absolutely decimate Petrovic and the ref
in an unusual thing that we don't see very often ends up reversing the decision and awarding the win to Petrovic
which Kalani Jordan gets understandably upset by but has nobody and I mean nobody to blame but herself
if she had just had her hand raised, gone to the back, she would have walked out with a submission victory over Carmen Petrovic
she had to try and take it that one step further and we know that that never works when it comes down to it
so completely her own fault. We then go as backstage as backstage gets which means that we're going to the parking lot
for a walking interview with Stephanie Vaquir who we saw in action earlier on in the card
and she has her sights firmly set on that North American championship
and not that anybody thought that she had her sights set on anything any different realistically
and she also makes mention that she's, Vaquir says about seeing Fallon Henley in hell
uses that word in specifically which makes me think we've already had a cage match sort of teased
are we possibly going to see a Hell in a Cell match which is unusual to see outside of Hell in a Cell pay per views
that could be something that happens and how interesting would that be I mean
Vaquir has quite a dark side to her character and it would be a perfect match type for her
as Fallon Henley is certainly capable of doing some dark things but does not have that dark side to her character
as far as we're aware so hopefully more comes of that next week on NXT
but moving swiftly on we go from there to the GM's office with Ava again and Fraxium
this is where we see sort of Bayley barging in and demanding that she has Cora Jade in a match
and we know that that is then after a bit of back and forth that is confirmed Cora will face Bayley next week in a singles match
which I think is perfectly justified we then see Briggs and Inamora come in
as I alluded to earlier on I think we saw where this might have been going as the proficient tag team of Briggs and Inamora
as they like to make themselves out to be are not that good at communicating as they've both gone away separately
and individually found a tag team each Briggs finding Hank and Tank and Inamora finding NQCC
and this is where it gets a bit complicated Ava sort of has a sly jab at them says oh well if you'd communicated with each other better
this wouldn't have happened but there's an easy fix for it
triple threat tag team match next week which means that Briggs and Inamora will face Hank and Tank and NQCC in a triple threat tag team match next week
which is and that will all be for an NXT tag team championship opportunity which is can only be what's best for business
we then see a backstage interview where Atown Down Under have an interview with Sarah Schreiber
and we start to see some cracks in Atown Down Under where I don't think they've sort of come to realise that this triple threat that they're in
for this triple threat match that they're in at vengeance day for the NXT World Heavyweight Championship is going to be it's either one of them wins it
or the other one wins it or Ober retains it's not a case that they can both win it
one person is going to walk out of that ring that night with the championship round their waist
and there's a potential that it could be either Austin Theory or Grayson Waller could this be the end of Atown Down Under
but they don't have time to rest on their laurels as the main event match approaches we see
this is a men's tag team match set for one fall and this is Atown Down Under being Austin Theory and Grayson Waller versus the team of Ober Femi and Trick Williams
now we know that when former rivals have to tag together especially if it's against their will it's never going to end well
it's always going to go badly and I mean it starts before the match even begins and it's not even for mobile Femi and Trick Williams
because the crowd is very much split between Femi fans and Tricksters and early tension between Femi and Williams themselves is not making for a great sort of team synergy effort
across both of them and realistically throughout the entire match they behave as singles competitors who are forced to act together
which I suppose they are but if you're in a tag team match fight the tag team match don't put yourself at a greater risk of injury
or even worse put yourself at greater risk of the loss by acting as an individual in a team game it just doesn't make any sense but it's a case that Femi and Williams despite themselves are sort of dominant early on
even though they seem sort of more focused on one another but this isn't to say that Atown Down Under are going down without a fight as they manage a big suicide dive to Femi and Williams at one point
Waller diving off the barricade to a prone Williams on the floor I mean Ober Femi comes back swinging I mean this guy is a huge gorilla of a man
and he does a huge Samoan drop to all of Atown Down Under so not just Austin Theory and not just Grayson Waller but the pair of the prize pricks end up taking a Samoan drop from Ober Femi
and honestly I think this match could have gone either way but the deciding factor wasn't any of the men in the ring in fact it was Eddie Thorpe who has been in the NXT Men's Heavyweight Championship match picture
for a little while has had a few challenges which he's been unsuccessful in comes in to interfere and ends up taking a strap to the back of Williams' legs
Atown Down Under pick up the win and Thorpe just starts beating the hell out of Williams and this doesn't look this sends Atown Down Under into
with a lot of momentum into next week as we will no doubt see Trick Williams versus Eddie Thorpe next week I would imagine this has not been officially announced but
being a wrestling fan for as long as I have I feel like that's a pretty safe bet as it goes and the episode closes with this all too familiar colour card except we see four silhouettes
and I don't recognise any of these silhouettes I mean my initial thoughts as I'm thinking about it now could it be the Wyatt Six
they were transferred supposedly to SmackDown but haven't been seen as of yet are we seeing something similar to the Wyatt Six
are we seeing possibly the a new offshoot of the House of Black is that coming to NXT potentially there's so many possibilities as to who this could be but I think we are going to have to wait at least for next week's NXT
to maybe get a few more details or possibly even wait to vengeance day as to when we find out what happens with that and with that we come to a close of another episode of finishes and factions I thank every last one of you for listening
and implore you all get in touch with us let us know what you like what you don't like about the podcast we are always happy to take any sort of constructive criticism that anybody has for us and hopefully sometime soon we will see Rich make his triumphant return battling the illness
and he will be back before long to help me out and bring his unique opinions to the podcast but for now we have been or I have been finishes and factions does NXT and we will see you again for finishes and factions does Friday night SmackDown thank you for catching some action see you again soon