Welcome to the ring, it's rich and Adam Breaking down the fights, lip flare and passion
Tag teams grappling, belts are clashing, finishers and factions catching action
Welcome everyone to another episode of finishes and factions goes NXT with myself Rich and with my good homeboy Adam
Hi there everyone and tonight TNA because we've literally just been discussing TNA I've fucked that up already anyway NXT took place from Orlando Florida in the WWE Performance Centre for the second week in a row and this is the last NXT before
the bengents day this Saturday and that's definitely a pay-per-view I'm going to be looking forward to watching at some point over the course of the weekend
Yeah definitely lots of interesting matches and as we found out from this week's NXT they weren't done adding value to it, having said that we'll jump straight in as NXT did it's one of my favourite ways for wrestling promotions to start their shows with an actual match
and we went straight in with Bayley vs Corin Jade which is basically a revenge match from last week to be fair it was given to us due to the actions of the two of those superstars previously
Yes most definitely Jade ran in during Bayley's match last week and pretty much well no it wasn't even during a match last week it was during the triple threat for the women's NXT Championship contenders summit or whatever they called it last week I forget
Corin Jade has been feeling a bit jilted over the last few weeks we've especially as her parent friend Roxanne Perez has been taking small digs at her whenever she can feasibly work one of those in
I mean Roxanne Perez seems to be taking digs and jabs at everyone at the moment mainly at Bayley though to be fair like where you see one you see the other which is where it seems to be going no matter where Bayley goes you get Roxanne Perez
Yeah and this match was no different I mean before we even got to that point we saw a lot of sort of Corin Jade running away I've referred to it and a lot more sort of older wrestle heads will refer to it as being a chicken shit heal
basically running away from the fight rather than engaging in it
Yeah which is something we've grown to kind of see from Corin Jade an awful lot to be but unless she is on what looks like to be the winning side she is not going to play back
Yeah definitely and Bayley was definitely sort of coming in hot on this match as she still wasn't very happy about what happened last week and Bayley still consistently managing to appear on every weekly television episode of either raw NXT and SmackDown
or not even keeping track anymore of how many episodes on every episode of televised programming including PLEs for the last pretty much month
So we can well it can it definitely can't be said that she doesn't put the hours in I suppose
So you're not playing her flight build because that's going to start adding up eventually
Well yeah I mean we went from Raw the night before in Tennessee to have to get all the way to Florida it was that isn't an easy trip to make in 24 hours
No it's not at all and then obviously we're guessing that she will probably be at SmackDown this week as well which I don't really don't want to kind of throw too much in there
but if she appears at SmackDown and then she has to get to Vengeance Day as well obviously she's got a self a match there
That's good she's going to be getting tired soon
Yeah definitely WWE are definitely making that woman work for her money recently
but somebody else that made the trip from Tennessee to Florida this week was Roxanne Perez as we mentioned
You don't see one without the other you don't see Perez without Bayley and the other way around this time it was no different except we had Roxanne Perez dressed up as Bayley
or more accurately I think they referred to it as Classic Bayley
I think a lot of people know her as sort of the hugger Bayley this was the sweet and then sweet baby face that she had before she had a heel turn
and sort of moulded into whatever it is she is now I'm not sure if she's face or heel or somewhere in between
if I can hear there in every verse she's just known as the workhorse
Yeah definitely but I mean at that point Bayley is trying to fight a war on two fronts
and we know whether that's in the wrestling ring out in the real world or anywhere in between
it's never going to end well for the person that's trying to split their attention
Corra Jade ends up picking up a win on Bayley
and we're also treated to a clip of a very small clip of NXT general manager Ava whispering to Julia
Well after this match obviously like there was a I don't know really how to kind of put this one out there
this match as nice as it was to see like we both agree with NXT going straight into the first match and start off with
there wasn't really a lot in this match
apart from you had a couple of tiny spots that weren't anything over the top
there was no really big sort of memorable moments for this match
No and I think a majority of that comes down to the fact that this was a grudge match
this wasn't Bayley going out giving a performance this was Bayley wanting to go out and kick Corra Jade's head in
Corra less especially considering the assault that Corra Jade laid in the week before
it was Bayley got a double serving of that from that kind of whoop ass that Corra Jade decided she was opening last week
and yeah it's still
a clip of Ava whispering to Julia which I think if I remember correctly it's kind of unveiled a little bit later as to what was said
Well it was sort of unveiled not a few minutes later with Ava coming out trying to split up a fight I believe between the three women in the ring at the time
and Bayley, Corra and then Roxanne out there at the same time as well
I mean the only one that was really sort of absent during all of this and I won't say absent is probably the wrong word to use was Julia herself the defending champ
we know that up to this point Bayley, Roxanne Perez and Julia are in a triple threat match at Vengeance Day
Keep wanting to go Judgement Day and it's obviously because of the faction apparently I've lost the ability to speak coherently
Nothing not a finisher called the Judgement Day
Yeah well, it's not confused me any further it doesn't take much
but yeah essentially we find out that this whispering between Ava and Julia is basically Ava saying yeah we're going to expand your match a little bit
we're going to give you one more person to fight off
and in this case it was turning a triple threat match into a fatal ball way
not taking anybody away but adding in Corra Jade who apparently earned a last minute spot in this match for the NXT Women's Championship
which is generally an interesting one we haven't seen a fatal ball way in a title match for a while so we're hoping we get something a little bit special from this entire occasion
Yeah I mean I think we're all hoping the same thing it's certainly been built up to be a bit of a barn burning match
I mean we've got some heavy hitters from NXT even the main roster in that match so the expectations are certainly there for it
I must admit it's going to be one of those I think that will be the match of the card for the vengeance day
I mean I would certainly hope so and I'm sort of hoping that Corra Jade is there to add value rather than take it away as traditionally from what I've seen of NXT
especially when we've commented on episodes beforehand it's a case that when they do these bigger matches is that we tend to see a vast majority player can play more of a role
and then we've got somebody else that just sort of fills a spot they don't really relevant to anything but the way that they've built everything up so far is certainly showing that
at least majority of them are going to be relevant I mean I'm not sure sort of how this Corra Jade angle is going to play into it all but I'm hoping they've just not done it to sort of bulk out the paydays for superstars on the roster realistically
yeah I mean if they have done it to do that that is going to suck quite hard and we have noticed and so we've mentioned it a few times but Corra Jade seems to be the weak link
I'm just hoping what they don't do is play it so she comes out of this holding Julius title
there's obviously an effect of fall way Julia does not need to be the one that gets pinned or submitted to lose her title
I mean realistically during this match I mean not discounting anybody from this match this match up this is essentially a match up for me it's the one that won't be but should be made more irrelevant in this match up is Bayley
I don't see Bayley walking out of vengeance day with the NXT women's championship she's only just qualified for the elimination chamber and it's a case that it would not make sense to make her the NXT women's champion to then have her go on and compete in the elimination chamber it just makes no sense at all
no it wouldn't make any sense doing that and also without trying to knock NXT Bayley's above NXT she doesn't need to be holding a title down there anymore she's in theory well she's therefore at the moment it's just helping out the current roster make some of them look stronger than they actually are
that and she's a draw I mean we've seen the reaction that Bayley gets from the NXT crowds and she's there as a as 100% she's there as a money earner
she is NXT but she she doesn't need to be she's she's paid her dues she's shown away for she's she's held bigger and better titles on the main roster giving her the women's title for the NXT is a massive like step down for her and actually go as far to say it's quite a big insult to give it back to her because she can and has had better
it's a case that they can it's more of a case that they can they can use her as a draw but she's not reasonably going to win it's not going to add anything to Bayley's to Bayley's character to be NXT women's champion again not from what I'm not from where I'm sat
I mean the only two women I see possibly walking out of this fatal four way as winners is either Julia retains or Jade no I'm going to say Cori Jade take takes it out because Roxanne Perez I think we're seeing a transition for Perez from NXT into main roster as if I'm not very much mistaken
I may be wrong I believe Roxanne Perez herself has a matched qualify for the elimination chamber and I believe that might be on raw potentially so she seems to be being pushed towards raw a little bit more and I think they're very much testing the waters with whether they can bring Roxanne Perez up and from what I'm seeing the numbers look good
I've said before that Roxanne Perez is due a main roster bump and I think they've chosen roughly about the right time to be able to do that
I personally like we've seen a few people being released from main roster to make space I don't think it's further likes of Roxanne Perez just yet I think they're going to keep hold of her in NXT until possibly after WrestleMania I think her call up will be the raw after WrestleMania
See with the releases I was very much the set up very much sort of along the same lines as you is that are they going to bring anybody up I think if they do put a hold on it they've got to at least keep Roxanne Perez his name in the picture because I'll maintain
I think that with the right story the right angle if she's used in the right way she could make a huge impact on either SmackDown or Raw doesn't matter which but it's got to be done correctly it's not just going to be a yet you're going you're no longer on NXT you're going to be on Raw on SmackDown and then they do nothing with her
I mean because we've seen from the releases one of the releases they did exactly that they took her out of NXT brought her up to main roster and then did fuck all with her and the name escapes me
I think I know he's talking about that again can't pull it off the top of my head no I can't pull it off top of my head either it's just I think if you move her up now I think it's too much there's too much going on at the moment to be able to really give her the push that she deserves
Blair Dappenport that was the name I couldn't think of that's literally where I've just gone to Google while we were talking
I know I got a screenshot of the releases because it was a case that I was we were all mininaring about how to address the releases and everything along those lines is that because the releases need to be addressed maybe something will come to a little bit later on just have a quick chat around them
but we'll we'll see how we go and I think we're lingering on match one a little bit we've got an we've got an entire card to get through so we'll move on and I've got
Sol Ruka and Zarya have been on a little bit of a run they've started they started off with a really strong win last week which they started talking about and this is where I mean I'm introduced but certainly me I'm introduced to a new character here in Nikita Lyons
seems to be a relatively big name. Yeah seems to be a relatively big name in NXT but again having I have to point out that any episodes that we've done any episodes that have been on Netflix since the Netflix era began are the only NXT episodes I've ever ever been able to pull up anything else that I referenced from before that time has either been researched or mentioned it's
that's the only way around it but basically setting up for a match between her and Zarya later on in the card and then we're switching over to in ring again where we hear from our current men's NXT champion over Femi and not going to lie the guy's growing on me a little bit
I really enjoy his entrance I like the song the way the entrance is choreographed it's yeah he's really getting over with me. He's starting to kind of get in the right sort of positions for that as well considering we not really seen a massive amount in ring from him since he won the title we've seen a defence
but we've not seen a huge amount from him sort of in ring wise a lot of lot of promo stuff we've seen and he's very good with the microphone. I'm just a little bit unsure when it comes to over Femi about how they're going to build to push him further
obviously the guy's the NXT men's championship holder at the moment but you can't just stop there they've got to keep kind of progressing that character and I'm starting to wonder he's you know what can they do with him apart from him being
I'm hoping they don't turn him into NXT's version of Goldberg where they just let him decimate what is quite a half decent roster at the moment.
Well we've had it referenced on a few occasions that this isn't over Femi's first title reign in NXT I believe if I remember correctly he was previously the North American champion and lost that to Tony DiAngelo who still remains the North American champion but then picked up at the very first
NXT sort of NXT episode which was New Year's Evil came in won the NXT men's champion and started his reign from there so we have seen the very beginning of his world of the heavyweight champion reign but never really saw anything from his North American championship reign which
he also won the year's Iron Survivor challenge as well and he won the 2023 NXT men's breakout tournament so we're used to seeing him win you know he's definitely a winning pedigree but it's not something we've watched him do if you get me.
No and a lot of the matches that he's had or the matches that I've seen so far on the Netflix era have been he's sort of weirdly come up from being behind he sort of seems to he seems to get his ass kicked in the first few minutes and then seems to come up afterwards.
Yeah, I would agree with that.
And that's I mean a guy that's built the way that he's built should not be coming up.
It should be more of an early domination thing if then if somebody gets the upper hand on him it's a case that we go from there but I mean in this case Oberfemme is coming out talking about his match on Saturday at vengeance day which is a triple
threat for the men's NXT champion as well.
It's being booked as a triple threat match but we all know how this is going to go down and Oberfemme even says it there it's not going to be a triple threat it's going to be a handicap match between him and Atown down under.
Now, this is the odd thing is that even during this promo I mean we have Atown down under come out. They start they start basically confirming Oberfemme is I'm not going to call them fears but hypothesis is that yeah they're going to work together but
then pair can't seem to keep straight who it is that they're pulling to win. I mean they're both trying to win it out from under the other one and hoping that they'll still be able to work together at the same time and I don't know I think we'll see possibly some
teamwork in the beginning but it's all going to devolve down it will break down during the match.
If Oberfemme doesn't win the match like in retain this championship I think this could spell the end for Atown down under. If one of them is holding a title and the other one isn't someone's going to be a little bit jealous and someone's going to end up trying to kick someone's ass.
I mean this could be potentially the end of Atown down under regardless. Yes. I mean they've not long been drafted. I think they were not drafted transferred it's a transfer window now not a draft.
And they would they would transferred I think from Raw to SmackDown. Then yes. Haven't made an appearance on SmackDown since apart from an initial one to say yeah we're here but then seem to have been inadvertently moved over to NXT instead.
Which is yeah it is a little bit. I'm not entirely sure why they've done it either to be fair. I mean I can currently understand. Signed to the Raw brand.
There's certainly a storyline aspect for both Grayson Waller and Austin Theory for them to have another run in NXT as neither of them have had any single success in NXT at all through multiple runs between the two of them and we sort of went over this in a previous episode of
Finishes and Factions does NXT anyway. I went into a fair fair amount of detail where I think I broke it down through individual runs and yeah they've they've had some successes they've had some really not they've had some really good matches but never had any title success in NXT.
No. But I think certainly tensions are rising between A Town Down Under I think there's definitely going to be some I mean there's obviously going to be some in fighting I think they're going to at least go into that match trying to take out Oberfemi to begin with and then they'll just try and sort of do get out between the two of them.
But we know it's not we know they're not going to take over Femi out and then him be out and it's just then a singles match between the two of them that's just not how it's going to work out it never does.
Best laid plans of mice and men and all that but essentially even during this promo it seems as though a fight breaks out between Waller and Theory which then spilled over to both of them attacking Oberfemi.
This bit I generally thought we were going to see Grayson Waller and Austin Theory beat shit out of each other. I was hoping they wouldn't be fair and then they both went for Oberfemi and I was like he bastards.
Yeah I was hoping they were about to start laying waste into each other and like I said the cracks have already appeared for A Town Down Under I think that's pretty obvious for anyone who's kind of watched recently. How deep those cracks are I think we're going to find out in a vengeance day.
100% it's certainly a match to keep an eye on so I'll be keep my eyes peeled for that one.
We went from that in ring promo to a VT featuring Eddie Thorpe who's basically seems to have picked a fight with Trick Williams recently.
I mean we saw him during Trick's match last week come out and lay into him well and truly with whatever that strap thing is that he's been toting around recently and basically declares that he wants Trick Williams in a strap match at vengeance day.
And Trick Williams is obviously going to let him have it. We both know there's a little bit of something between those two and I think they have pretty much got to that point now where if they don't sell it it's going to end up easing at both of them so at vengeance day they said they're going to settle that one in a strap match.
Yeah definitely. And then from that promo we went into the second match which was so very chaotic but chaotic in the best way possible.
I have absolutely zero notes on this one apart from who was in the match purely for the fact that A it was completely clustered to B I got two engrossed in it.
So because I know how this one's going to go I'd love to hear who you have involved in this match.
Right so you've got Clank and Tank, the No Quarter Catch Crew and then Briggs and Inamora.
Okay that was the one I thought you were going to triple on. I'm not going to lie so yeah we've got a triple threat tag team match which again it's NXT doing more than one adversary in a match which sometimes can leave one being a bit irrelevant to the overall story of the match type itself.
This one came about from a lack of communication between Briggs and Inamora last week after they basically went to Fraxium and said we want a title shot without actually ever having competed in a match together.
We're basically told by the tag champs to go out and find an opponent, have a match, win it and come back and see us. So Inamora and Briggs went off separately to find a match for themselves.
Ended up coming back to Ava saying yeah I've got an opponent and apparently so is he. And this is how a triple threat was born from it really.
So this was all the doing of Josh Briggs and Yoshiki Inamora all in a hunt for a tag champion opportunity.
Yeah and the only thing I had a slight issue with this match apart from you know it was a clusterfuck to take notes on was that I really struggled to keep an eye on the tags and you're going to have to out on the out here.
But the no quarter catch group, which two out of the four were actually in that match? I know Charlie Dempsey was on the outside. I remember seeing him but he never made it into the ring.
No Charlie Dempsey was not involved. Charlie Dempsey had no involvement in the match other than coming out.
Yeah so he just saw him wander around the outside of the ring but he didn't touch anyone, he didn't do anything to interfere. He was literally just part of an entrance.
Yeah he was there as an appearance, he was completely irrelevant to the story of the match. Had nothing really to go through but it's yeah.
If me and you had issue trying to keep track of the tags in the match I feel so sorry for that poor referee.
Oh my god. Yeah no that poor reference fucked from the start.
But I did manage to get a few very fleeting notes throughout this match. Briggs in Inamora, sort of double team tank from Hank and Tank who manages to dodge both of them with a cartwheel in ring
which I found actually really impressive for somebody who's built the way that Tank is. I mean he's got the name Tank, he is built like a fucking Tank.
It's not an orange sign for WWE and Rukin'a Lighty.
Yeah there is that. I think that is, I don't think that's Hank, I think that's Hank who looks an awful lot like Seth Rogen.
And it's all I can see is one of the stars of Pineapple Express in the ring whenever I look at him but that's my issue.
But yeah I mean the match itself was completely solid, it was just complete fucking chaos.
Which from what I know of the three teams involved was never going to be anything other than chaos and it just made us, made it really difficult to take notes on.
But the long story short of all of this chaos is that Briggs in Inamora actually managed to walk out of this with the win and Briggs in Inamora are now facing Fraxium on Saturday for the NX team tag team titles.
Yeah which, there was an interesting one, was Fraxium obviously watching this match with Baited Breath to see you know who and what was going to happen.
And they kept referring to Fraxium having a title match at NXT, not at NXT, the NXT tag team title holders having a match at NXT.
I know, on hairball. TNA sorry, they were defending against the TNA tag team a couple of weeks ago. So obviously we've seen them with the titles we know that they defended that title against the TNA tag team.
So Fraxium have done quite a bit of defending on TNA programming recently. I think they've actually done two title defences over on TNA in their normal episodic TV shows.
I know one of them was versus the Nemeth brothers, Nick and Ryan Nemeth. That was last week or the week before and then there was another one where they faced, oh I can't think what the team was called but both were successful title defences.
And yeah it seems that finally we're having Fraxium defend the NXT titles on an NXT program.
Which will actually be a treat to be quite honest because yeah they seem to have spent more time on TNA recently than they did on NXT.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. Obviously they are trying to make the most of this contract that's been signed between TNA and WWE.
There's just one match that I'd like to see. I'm not going to lie, but this contract is up.
We said this off podcast, the current TNA tag title holders are the Hardy boys. Jeff's one of them. I'm not sure Matt's holding with him but it'd be interesting to see if the Hardys defend a TNA title in WWE.
Is that pop and it goes will be huge? Well it'd be nice to see. I know one of the matches that's swirling around that they keep, the pair of them keep sort of hinting at is, so the TNA tag titles as far as I'm aware are being held by both of the Hardy boys.
Matt and Jeff and they've even gone as far as to tease a future match between the Hardy boys and Fraxium at some point in the future.
Whether that will be done in a WWE ring, whether that will be done in a TNA ring is yet to be decided I think.
But at the moment, as much as that match would be nice to see, hopefully in a WWE ring so we can talk about it more freely on here.
But it's a case that Fraxium have got to refocus and make sure that they're zeroed in on Briggs and Inamora because both are heavy hitters, both aren't going to be easy to take down by any means necessary.
So the boys have just taken down two rough and tumble teams in no quarter catch crew and hank and tank and they're 100% they've been saying they've been ready for weeks for a tag title match.
They've just kind of proved that. So we get to see Fraxium up against Josh Briggs and Inamora in a few days.
Yeah, won't take long at all. So it'd be nice actually to see. I don't think we've seen. I don't believe we've seen Fraxium compete properly in NXT since the start of the Netflix era.
I'm not sure. I have to go back through my notes, but I don't think I've seen Fraxium wrestle while we've been so unless they did last week while I was off ill.
No, but they definitely didn't. But yeah, so Briggs and Inamora versus Fraxium on vengeance day for the NXT tag titles.
We'll we'll comment on that when we do our coverage of vengeance day in a few days time. But moving back to this week's NXT, we went from in ring action to a backstage promo.
Tony DiAngelo talking about his match a little bit later on against Ridge Holland for the North American Championship inside of a steel cage.
Yeah, and I'll be honest, apart from promoting the apart from promoting the match really this this promo didn't really sort of serve any other purpose it didn't forward it didn't bring forward any sort of
any sort of storyline or anything like that not as far as I can see. But the one thing I did notice is we had Izzy Dame in the background.
She was there. She's very much seems very much like she's very much part of the DiAngelo family, even though she's been claiming for so many weeks that she's not and she's not adding she's not having anything to do with them.
She seems to be popping up with them an awful lot recently for somebody who's not involved whatsoever.
Yeah, exactly. It's been a bit of a strange process, but I think we will see a little bit more of that conclude possibly a vengeance day to be fair.
Like, if not our vengeance day will be the next sort of a PLE afterwards, I suppose.
So we'll come back to that a little bit later on as that develops a little bit more. But we went from there into match three, which was the Heritage Cup Championship match title defence.
And where we select this King has changed the way the Heritage Cup works while he's currently holding it, which is a little bit of a pain because I've only just got used to the original Heritage Cup rules.
So I wasn't I wasn't necessarily mad at the fact that he changed the match rules or the way that the titles defended as it does make it more of a traditional match type.
Whereas the Heritage Cup rules were sort of, I think they were possibly a little bit hard to follow for some people.
So they've simplified it down. It does take a lot of the pomp and circumstance out of the Heritage Cup. I mean, the only sort of real difference between that and any other championship now is that you don't get a belt, you get a cup.
But yeah, Lexus King trying to make his mark on the championship this time around, which is never really a bad thing. But he's facing somebody that we wouldn't normally see on WWE TV anymore in JDC, formerly known as Fandango.
Well, we are seeing a lot of a lot of TNA in the last few weeks within WWE programming. So but yeah, former WWE wrestler coming back in under a new name and with a new promotion and actually to be fair with a decent gimmick.
I'm not going to lie to you. I hated Fandango's gimmick.
Fandango was a very sort of, he got over to a point but more because of his entrance theme than the actual wrestling. And because I remember when Fandango made his made his debut, he appeared in main roster matches.
They were sort of very much squash matches. This, it wasn't anything sort of to write home about. But I remember WWE focusing on the fact that he's the way that his song was put together and everything like that.
It was very much capturing the WWE universe to the point that even made it as a Premier League, as a English Premier League, sort of football chant at one point.
I remember that video fairly vividly. I don't remember who the teams were that were involved in that match, but it was something that the crowd was chanting during the match and it was captured and shown on WWE TV, which main gave the Premier League probably quite a lot of exposure to maybe people that weren't that interested in it before.
I'm thinking mainly Americans, but yeah, but this match itself, I mean, JDC came out and gave a good sort of, he gave a good showing, he came out represented TNA and did TNA very proud in my opinion, but it was a case that I don't think JDC was ever really
in any sort of contention to win the Heritage Cup, as that would have been the first time that a non-WWE superstar would have held a WWE title to have won it on.
The WWE programming would have been history making, admittedly. I think the first time they give a WWE title to a non-WWE wrestler will be a very big deal, so it was not going to be fun, I go.
No. But the match itself was solid, I had no issue with the match, we know that Heritage Cup, anybody that comes into compete for the Heritage Cup, it's a very sort of technical based wrestling match, it's not full of heavy strikes or anything like that, it is a, it is for all intent and purpose, it is a wrestling match, it is not a sports entertainment wrestling match, so to speak.
But I mean, yeah, solid match, can't be mad at it at all.
No, definitely not.
Now, I'm going to move on from this match just because it wasn't necessarily a highlight for me, but there is something that I've put this at the top of my page with the notes in it, and not sure exactly where it's slotted into the running order for everything, I think we possibly may have bridge-passed it.
Just a touch, but we saw a VT promo at some point during NXT of Javon Evans being medically cleared, but to compete at Vengeance Day, which was a stipulation put in place by Ava last week, that Javon Evans could have Ethan Page at Vengeance Day if he was medically cleared.
But the doctor that gave this medical clearance was saying that basically he very much risks his career stepping into that ring.
Javon Evans' jaw is fucked, like Ethan Page did a very, very good job on smashing that jaw, and Ethan Page did a pretty good job on smashing a few people around. We've seen him take out Javon Evans, we've seen him take out our comment, guys, name, no.
We saw him take out Edric Alexander, who recently returned, but unfortunately was one of the ones that was released.
I really didn't see a point at all.
No, I theorised that it might have been just sort of like a, it would have.
Not necessarily for the storyline, it would have hurt Cedric Alexander as a professional wrestler to have been released while out on injury. It wouldn't have looked good for WWE.
It wouldn't have looked good for Cedric Alexander. So they gave him a match where he came back, gave a really strong performance as a way of saying to other promotions and trying to get him over as much as possible with other promotions.
So that when he left WWE, left NXT, he had something to fall back on. It wasn't just going to be the case that, oh, he was out on injury. He was released by a rather callous WWE, and that was it.
That was the way I looked at it, and maybe that's wrong for looking at it that way, but at the end of this BT promo, we have Ava pleading with Javan Evans to really sort of consider what's going on, and even has to go down the legal route of getting him to sign a liability waiver,
basically covering WWE against if he is maimed or anything like that, that WWE hold no liability for it whatsoever. It was his own choice, which from a business perspective, really smart move, legal would have been happy with that.
I really think that should have been a, should have set off some red flags for Javan Evans, but apparently he's very much laser focused on trying to kick as many of the, as many bells out of Ethan Page as humanly possible.
I mean, that would be a good match. I know, because you know that Javan Evans is not going to let Ethan Page get away with any stupidity, so I think, I mean, I'd like to say that I think they'll let Javan Evans win this one, just to give him a one over Ethan Page.
Once his jaw is completely back to how it should be, I think we'll end up with another run at this storyline again.
Yeah, so as I said, I'm not sure, can't quite remember from when I watched it back where that VT promo sort of slots into everywhere else, but moving on from there, we'll get back into where the running order picked off.
So we just left the match three, which was the Heritage Cups Championship, which saw...
Which Lexus King retained against JDC.
Yeah, 100%. We then went to a GM office promo where we saw Ava and Bailey arguing basically over Bailey getting another shot at Cora Jade, as I don't think Bailey felt she had a fair shake at the stick for it.
But we never really hear what the response is for that, as Roxanne Perez makes her entrance shortly after the promo begins to almost bitch at the fact that this now is a fatal four way that Roxanne Perez has got to go through at least three other women to try and get back the championship that she lost at New Year's Evil.
Which is quite funny though, when she comes in, she starts bitching and Ava points out that actually it's a very important if you'd kept yourself to yourself and stayed in the locker room, we wouldn't be having this problem.
There'd still only be three of you in vengeance day.
Yeah, which do you know what, I can't really argue with Ava over it would have been a case, I think if Bailey had been allowed to continue a match to the theorized sort of completion that we were going for, then yeah, 100%.
Bailey would have come out on top, Cora Jade wouldn't have earned the opportunity to make that triple threat into a fatal four way, but this was all because Roxanne Perez couldn't resist having a bit of a poke at Bailey.
Well yeah, then she's had a fair few of them.
Yeah, 100%. I mean, we see during this promo that Perez then sort of redoubles her effort and pledges to become a three time NXT champion.
And Bailey sort of responds in a bit of a juvenile way, but it would be juvenile if anybody else did it.
But Bailey points out that Perez has never looked better when she would dress like Bailey, like classic Bailey, but then goes to call her an ugly idiot and walks out.
That's the bit I find a bit juvenile, but it would have been juvenile if anybody else had done it, and not so juvenile because Bailey did it, which feels a bit like a double standard.
It's kind of amusing, but it's not going to be interesting to see if Bailey still fits into that old ring here.
Because you think the time has changed from Bailey being a hugger to now, it's probably she managed to find it, to be honest with you, the travelling she's doing, they must have taken some time to get that out of the suitcase.
Well, it'd be in a WWE locker somewhere, wouldn't it? It's somewhere in deep storage.
It wouldn't have been anything Bailey would have been allowed to keep, especially that early on in her career.
Her outfit, they all own their own costume side of things.
Some of the older gimmicks get put into the WWE vault, as they like to refer to it. A lot of Undertaker's previous outfits are in the WWE vault.
It's only a few bits and pieces that superstars themselves are actually allowed to keep hold of.
We've got a lot of people out there who are going to take her outside of her wrestling ring in sports this week as well, which is quite nice.
Yeah, I mean, we saw Mr Mark Callaway at the Super Bowl this week, I believe, with Jane O'Mad.
He was there as a guest of Mr McMahon himself.
Yeah, who obviously has come to light this week. The main criminal case, at least, against Vince McMahon has been dropped.
He's no longer being pursued, which is good for Vince McMahon.
Maybe not good for WWE.
Yeah, well, I don't see him coming back at this point. I don't see him playing any active role in the WWE now, not with the success that WWE is now seeing under Paul Levec's leadership.
And with their move to Netflix as well, their ratings have gone through the god damn roof. So it's definitely been a positive business change from the guys in the main office at WWE headquarters.
Yeah, this is it. I mean, plus, WWE saving so much money and not having to give out hush payments anymore. So it works out well for everybody.
It does.
But yes, anyway, coming on back, we saw just towards the end of that office promo that Corrigade basically comes in, makes the same claim as Perez and Perez don't like it.
She is coming off as a bit of a spoiled child at the moment. But I think that's sort of where they're planning on taking her character is we'll see. We'll see how that sort of all plays out at vengeance day on Saturday.
But we go from the GM office into match four.
Now, we mentioned this. We've mentioned both these names already. I do not think we've seen Zarya fight yet. And I know we haven't seen much from Nikita Lyons.
So for me, this was definitely an opening into some new characters that we've not seen that we could actually have, you know, it's helped freshen it up a little bit by bringing those few extra names and faces in there.
Just so out there, Zarya looks scary.
Yeah, I mean, Zarya we saw her we saw her in tag team action with Sol Ruka last week where they walked out victorious.
So we have seen a little bit of Zarya in ring and she's she she's every bit as scary in the ring as she looks to be quite honest.
Due to my battle with some germs last week, I didn't actually get around to seeing that much. Not going to like you. I haven't watched any of last week's programming. I was too busy trying to feel better.
Yeah, I mean, one part of this match was Zarya sort of powering out of a cinched in camel clutch. I mean, this sort of prove this sort of proves the power that is behind Zarya to be able to to be able to do something like that is super is otherworldly almost.
But it's this match came off to me feeling a little bit squashy.
It wasn't an out and out squash match but not like we've seen where we saw in the main roster with people like Ryback where he was coming out and basically just squashing local talent week in week out.
This was that there was a little bit of fight in it but it was still very much. This is Zarya. This is this is this is what she does basically.
We got an opportunity to see what I got an opportunity to see.
See Zarya. I was actually quite impressed by what I did see. I'm intrigued for future reference to see if we get to see her go up against some of the main roster powerhouses.
I think a match between Zarya and Nia Jax could be very interesting.
Yeah, as long as the story is built correctly, if they can build the match properly, it would be it would be a phenomenal match to see.
And by the you saw her come out and looking for some of those heavy hitting moves.
At one point she was looking to pop off a power bomb and got counted into her. I've put down head scissors but I'm pretty sure as a hurricanrana that she ends up getting it counted by.
Which is not something I expected to see from either of them. None of them are the smallest of superstars. They're both quite big superstars.
So to see those sort of moves that you don't normally see from guys of that sort of size, strength and stature was really interesting.
Oh, definitely. But yeah, I mean the whole match sort of paled to me only because it did come out feeling really squashy.
I'm just not I wasn't a fan of the match because of the because of how short it was it could have been more they were evenly matched.
It could have been a more competitive match. It could have felt less squashy and it just did.
We'll move on from there as we went from in ring action to backstage promo where we saw Fallon Henley, Jasmine, Nick's and JC Jane sort of confronted backstage by Kalani Jordan who is trying her absolute best not to be the sort of Taylor Swift of the
wrestling world. I mean we've seen certainly a different side to Kalani over the last since last week. It's very, very sort of angry Kalani Jordan we're dealing with at the moment and yeah she seems to think that she's due another title shot with Fallon Henley.
Everyone in the road to WrestleMania believe that you are title shot and unfortunately Kalani Jordan's not the only one. But Jada Parker decided that she also thinks she deserves a shot at that women's North American title.
Well it wasn't just her that got involved it was we saw a Shantae Adonis come in and basically speak for his woman Carmen Petrovic and come in and stake her claim to Fallon Henley's title as well.
And yeah they were all sort of just left to figure it out between them and I'm interested to find out how that would, how that goes from there.
I mean if you're going to read into it in a way that probably should. I think we're going to have to figure it all out. I think we're going to end up with Carmen versus Jada versus Kalani for a number one contenders role to face Fallon Henley for her title.
I mean that could be one way it goes I mean with the way that the booking decisions are being taken in NXT recently we could just end up with a fate or four way for the North American women's champion.
Right so I just turned into a battle royale at this point. If you want to go and stand in the ring. Last one wins.
Yeah this is it. We went from backstage into a VT plenty of VTs in this week's NXT I will be honest. But went into a VT promo where Ethan Page reacts to Javon Evans being cleared for competition.
Head of their whole bunch of vengeance though.
Yeah and yeah I mean Page has basically said that he's going out to end Javon Evans career. He's not going to settle for anything less.
He's pretty much already done it to be fair with that jaw. I mean we've seen he broke the jaw originally. We saw him absolutely they waste into Javon Evans with one punch four nights ago three weeks ago now.
Yeah Javon Evans came out to help.
Person whose name I can't remember off the top of my head. No I can't remember. Busted by Ethan Page.
We had this same Dante.
Yes Dante's uncle that got that was getting busted by Ethan Page with a steel step so obviously Javon Evans has come out to try and save Dante being smacked in the mouth for the privilege of.
Yeah so we've seen him a few times this this match at the vengeance day is going to be incredible like absolutely awful.
It's definitely been built the right way he'd asked to be we're hoping that it's it's going to live up to the hype.
I definitely hope so. And we know that if I say we know I've not seen a lot of Javon Evans. I'm just hoping that Javon Evans has got that little bit something special to him when we see that much.
Yeah I mean this will be a first exposure to Javon Evans wrestling for both of us realistically is that neither one of us has any idea what to expect from him. I've seen some clips of what of what he's done in the past.
It's very high flying. I mean I would expect nothing less from somebody who's built the way Javon Evans is.
He's not what I would call a Vince McMahon guy. He's not built like he's not built like he could rip the ring apart with his bare hands but he's obviously there for a reason so he can more than hold I'm sure he can more than hold his own against Ethan Page and who knows we'll see what happens at
the end of Engines Day. But we go from that VT to something we don't see in NXT at all. It might be the first time and I think the only reason this wasn't done in ring is because we see in the background as this happens.
They are setting up for the main event match at this point and it's an arena side promo done from the little sort of raised platform they have in the performance centre for NXT where Sarah Schreiber interviews
Trick Williams after apparently found the baby oil room in Diddy's Marcheon.
That man could have been forced through a keyhole without needing any further lubrication.
Yeah, no trick Williams definitely definitely found the baby oil in that one. Basically he came out to talk to Sarah Schreiber about the challenge that Eddie Thorpe had thrown out for the strap match at Engines Day.
Like we said earlier this is where Trick Williams basically goes yet got in a week on fight. We've seen over the last few weeks Eddie Thorpe has screwed Trick Williams over a number of times one of them being in a title match to try and get his NXT title back
and offer over Femmian didn't go to plan. No definitely not. I'd like to be able to say I know what a strap match is but I'm guessing just from what we've seen so far it's an opportunity for Eddie Thorpe to beat whatever he can beat out of Trick Williams with that nice long piece of leather that he's walking around with.
It's not actually a title but looks like it would hurt if you got hit with it anyway.
Oh definitely I mean Eddie Thorpe's last attack on Trick Williams saw him hit Trick Williams literally right on the back of the leg with it and the snap that thing made was
horrific realistically. It sounded gruesome but yeah that strap match should be an interesting one to watch because I don't think not at least to my memory I've ever heard or seen a strap match before.
I mean I've seen a tied together match where they're basically tied together on a I think it's like a six or seven foot length of rope and they have to wrestle a match that way and yeah just a bit of an odd concept that I'm interested to see at Vengeance Day.
Yeah so I have just thrown in Google what a strap match is.
It feels like it would be a very dangerous Google search I'm not going to lie.
So I made sure I put in WWE strap match first just to get anything else pop up and we have had by the looks of it a few of them in history over the years it basically sees two competitors attached on either end of a strap slash restraint to keep one competitor from running away from the other.
The actual strap is a legal object to use in the match and the contest is usually regarded as a no with disqualification match.
So the picture has got here is Daniel Bryan with brain wire at the Royal Rumble.
It's not a match type that I know that WWE do very often but now you've described it I know that AEW have done a few of these as well.
I've also got another image here of Sheamus and Mark Henry doing one and Drew McIntyre was involved in one in Extreme Rules in 2002 against Harry and Cross.
We've had a few of them, they've just, I'm guessing they've gone under different names as such.
Apparently Hulk Hogan, Vader, Sting, Stone Cold, The Rock and Triple H have all taken part in the strap matches.
No right, okay. Yeah, I mean, fair enough. Now, one of the bigger news stories of NXT this week was what happened next and...
So as we've all seen on wrestling social media, there have been a series of releases going out from not just WWE but AEW as well, which I thought was going to open up some of the slots that had been left by WWE's releases in the main roster.
I did not expect to see this one pop up at NXT and this is not a guy that I know of too much so I'm going to let, I guess Adam's probably done more research than I have on this specific gentleman.
So surprisingly enough, I haven't, I haven't looked into, so we saw the announcement that Ricky Starks, formerly of AEW, has made his way onto NXT.
This felt very sort of off the cuff and came with massive crowd pop to see Ricky Starks. In fact, I remember sitting watching this go out.
It's one of the very few that I've watched go out live and this is how out of the loop with Ricky Starks I am, is that I could hear the crowd chanting Ricky and I could see him, I could hear him.
The commentary team frustratingly did not mention who it was. I had to take to Google afterwards to find out who this was for the purposes of my notes. But yes, in the days that have followed, I've seen quite a few bits and pieces where apparently Ricky Starks has been quite unhappy over in AEW,
has been asking for his release where Tony Khan, the owner of AEW has basically been telling him, no, I'm not releasing you.
Obviously Tony Khan has eventually given in, given him his release and as far as I'm aware AEW do not operate a 90 days, no compete clause or anything like that that WWE have done in the past.
As, yeah, I mean Ricky Starks is NXT and is for now. So, NXT have filed trademarks 12 new in ring names.
And according to Colta Hollick, which is obviously quite a big wrestling website, they believe that Ricky Stark could end up being known as Osiris Griffin in NXT.
Oh, right. Okay. Not entirely sure if there is going to be an issue with naming copyright reasons that the moment he is listed on WWE's internal roster as Ricky Starks.
But we, according to the website, they believe he wasn't referred to as Ricky Starks during his debut, because they want to try and repackage him, so to speak.
Well, he wasn't referred to as anything other than I can't believe he's here.
Yes, WWE worked on the side of caution due to an agreement to you like Starks names and tradenarks not being in place.
Starks owns the trademarks to his name and his absolute moniker.
And WWE often organise deals to license the trademark from the talent if they don't want to undergo a name change. So there's probably some paperwork being done somewhere by some lawyers and legal aspects to see what they're going to be doing there.
But we will bring that up to you guys as we find out more over the next couple of episodes, I'm guessing.
Yeah, and yeah, as I say, this felt sort of very off the cuff. It didn't feel like it was planned this way. I'm not sure if the ring crew trying to assemble the cage around the ring for the main event was
we're bringing into some difficulties in being able to get it up in time, but it's a case that they were I think they were trying to play for time a little bit. And this is where Ricky Starks just happened to be in the building.
They were like, you know what, go out, a few minute promo, give us a bit more time. We'll play it off as what's going on because nobody seemed to know that this was going to happen.
I think even the camera crews were a little bit taken aback. And yeah, he came out of the car.
And to be fair, like you said, Ricky Starks and they'd been released like 36 hours beforehand by a W. So whatever was going on there was completely like, oh shit.
The paperwork's been signed. We didn't expect that to happen. Like, go out, go out, go on, go do something.
Yeah, they gave a viral moment. Don't get me wrong. It really drew some attention to NXT this week.
But yeah, I mean, Ricky Starks is part of NXT, whether he's under that name or not is a different question altogether.
But we then go from whatever that was to a backstage promo between Stephanie Baker and Julia wishing each other luck for their matches ahead of vengeance day.
Obviously, we know Julia is now involved in a fatal fall way to defend her title.
And Stephanie Vecur is competing against Fallon Henley for the North American North American Women's Championship on on Saturday also.
Which then led us into another backstage promo between Kyle Dixon and Kale Dixon, sorry, and Andre Chase.
I'm not entirely sure what the deal with Andre Chase is. And obviously, at one point, he was part of Chase University.
But he's not really done much in the last month while we've been, last six weeks while we've been doing this podcast.
Well, this is only the second time he's appeared on NXT television since NXT was brought over to Netflix.
So anybody like us that's come to NXT is with completely fresh eyes.
They're seemingly trying to tease the possible return for Chase U or some form of Chase U.
But yeah, not really not really seeing the draw to this.
They're very much relying on a on a history that I think they're hoping that people will go back and either research or go back and watch and everything along those lines.
I'm just I'm waiting to see what it is they're going to do with all this that with all this chase you hype that they're trying to deliver at the moment.
Because I'm not 100% certain.
But yeah, I mean, moving on from there, we move on to the main event match, which I know is a cage map was a cage match for the North American NXT championship.
Nice to see the North American championship getting a main event spot.
And I've seen as though this is the second title defense that we had on the add on the card for this better for this time round.
And this was Ridge Holland versus Tony D'Angelo. Tony D'Angelo being the defending champ.
And I'm not sure I mean, rich had a discussion about this after off podcast, but I'm not sure I would technically class this as a cage match only because
cage matches to my to my knowledge are normally won by escaping the cage, either through the door or through the or over the top.
Whereas that was just not the case. This was this was more like a like essentially like a hell in a cell match, more so, but not given the space around the outside of the ring.
And I mean, even the cage itself, I mean, I don't get me not I can understand why the superstars weren't going over the top of that cage because that cage was rickety as fuck.
No, I understand we don't see many of these match types.
But you know, thought whoever put that cage together if you don't lend on it, it will fire too closely to it. It looked like it was going to fall over.
So the fact that we're trying to have a match with two big blokes. I'm good.
Thanks.
Yeah, I mean, it's a case that don't get me wrong during the course of the match, the guys get thrown against the side of the cage and it does manage to hold its own just but it's yeah, just not not the quality I would have come to expect,
especially in a main event match, the fact that all you could have you could have secured that that cage so much better by putting cable ties at the top and the top corners of those those page panels.
And it would have been far more secure than it was at that present moment in time.
If I were a superstar either in that match or the D'Angelo family around the outside of that match, it's a case that I'd have been looking at that thinking fuck that's going to come down on me.
It's just my look it will come down right on my fucking head.
And yeah, it just it just seems a bit odd.
But we got a few a few decent moments during this match. There were lots of dirty tactics being used which sort of we is par for the course at this point.
Ridge Holland manages to get an early thumb to the eye of Tony D'Angelo and actually Ridge Holland looks pretty dominant throughout this match. Not really sort of not seeming as though he's going to have much troubling claiming the win but
D'Angelo definitely comes back strong and I mean, as I mentioned, the D'Angelo family are around the outside of the ring.
We've got Izzy Damon Stax who introduced sort of a crowbar to the match at one point, which gets used actually quite sparingly during this match.
I mean, if I'm competing for a championship and somebody introduces a weapon, I'm using the hella that thing before even my either my opponent breaks or the weapon breaks.
It's one of the two.
But yeah, the essentially the the match itself was relatively, I'm not going to say it's unremarkable because there were lots to sort of comment on it.
There were lots of spots in it and things like that.
Lots of big moves and it just felt a bit lackluster. The match itself.
I mean, the long story short of the matches that Tony D'Angelo ends up, ends up retaining his championship.
Wins delivers a thumb to the eye followed by a powerbomb to retain by pinfall.
But this felt a little bit sort of steal a victory for the champion and it's more so about what happens after this.
It's a case that Holland go it ends up outside of the cage to attack the family.
And this is where part of the family are taken out.
Holland ends up attacking.
I think it was stacks and stacks and the other one.
I can't remember what I never remember what is name it because they don't reference him very often.
It's something I don't really remember.
No, Rizzo was the Rizzo's the female member of the D'Angelo family.
Yeah, the name of the guy escapes me.
Again, they don't focus too heavily on him.
So I'm not really prone to remembering people's names in that sense.
But they're taken to the back by Ridge Holland and we don't really see much of them after that point.
Now this leaves Tony D'Angelo pretty defenseless in the middle of the ring with only Rizzo there with him.
We then see Sean Spears, Nico Vance and Jensen appear seemingly from out of the crowd.
And this is where I said that we'll sort of discuss Izzy Dame's involvement because this is where Izzy Dame actually ends up turning on Tony D'Angelo and Rizzo
and seemingly siding with Sean Spears and his cronies as they are very much referred to.
And yeah, Rizzo and D'Angelo more so are just completely decimated in the ring.
Having been locked in the cage with all four of these individuals, they absolutely go to town on D'Angelo.
And yeah, he's very much left prone with these guys stood over him to finish the night with.
The only other thing to mention is that after we see this, we go to a vengeance day promo which is followed by this colour card that seems to have been appearing at the end of it.
At the end and in the background of NXT followed by some face masks which I think is trying to allude to who these little VT promos thing, these little VT promo things are sort of urging us to or trying to give us clues as to who is going to be debuting on NXT at Vengeance Day.
And yeah, I'm still completely clueless, not a clue, but it'll be interesting to find out.
Yeah, and find out we will when the finishes and factions goes to Vengeance Day on Saturday the 15th of February.
Yeah, so that sort of brings us to the end of NXT and well, certainly to the end of my notes for it and yeah, all we can obviously say is thank you guys for tuning in.
The next time you'll be hearing from us is NXT, no, not NXT, it will be Finishers and Factions Does Smackdown which is due to go out on Friday and will then be doing an episode for Vengeance Day which is taking place from Washington DC.
Yeah, it certainly is. Right, well I think I've got everything out of it, is that everything from you as well?
Yeah, I can't think of anything else.
I'll see you for the next episode then, good night.