NXT returned last night (February 10) from Flor Rlando, Florida’s Capital Wrestling Center (CWC). You can find the results on the live blog.
The final is set
This week’s main event was the men’s dusty semi-final match between The Grizzled Young Veterans and Tomaso Siampa and Timothy Thatcher.
The match was a solid masterpiece, sure to show how GYV really worked as a true team. While T and T were not far from the same page, it was clear that vets are extensions of each other. When Zack Gibbs caught James Drake, the victim of Siampa’s final willow bell, he was able to stop the move. This allowed the Vets to deliver their double team finisher tickets to Mayhem. Gibbs covered Tomaso as Drake stopped Thatcher from breaking it.
Grizzly Vets were always locked up for the finals as it looked like they were in line for some significant pressure before the epidemic hit and they returned to Europe.
On the other side of the bracket, MSKA entered the final by defeating El Legado del Fantasma.
The show of this match opened and it was a very enjoyable time. Both have fun styles and she’s messed up well for this turn. MSK can be as strong as a roll out. They will be able to show personality and use their unique style in NXT tag format. Dusty’s move to the finals immediately establishes him as a legitimate threat in the department, whether or not he defeats the Grizzly Young Veterans.
This will include a talented, but soft (by design) team in JVV against the opposite in MSK. And while Vets is a waiter with no qualities to wait for, he always stays good in the ring. This final should be the final worthy match of the Dusty Classic.
The other final
The Women’s Dusty Finals were also set this week.
Shotzi Blackhart and Amber Moon advanced to the takeover, beating Candice Lare and Indy Hartwell. It was a really enjoyable confrontation, though with some of the talents of this match, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Moon, Blackheart and Larry are all great wrestlers. Hartwell is still newer than this, and is evident in many of her matches. But here, it was solid, but also an impressive springboard whipping elbow.
My “grip” about this match was his position more. Last week, Raquel Gonzalez and Dakota Kai pulled their tickets to the final. That means the outcome of this match was never really in doubt. Heel Vs. The heel match is very unusual, so Wayne got very little chance in this match. Face vs face matches are more common. If Amber and Shotzi had won first, it would not have been impossible for Casey Catanzaro and Caden Carter to have won their match. This is not an issue with this match. It’s more a matter of how they chose to put it.
We learned this week that the winner of the Dusty Cup will eventually get the title shot of the women’s team. The winner should try to match it on Sunday before Nia’s hole heals completely.
A perfect jerk
Johnny Garga continues to find new life as a coward heel.
To try not to face Kushida on takeover, he broke his arm telling everyone. To get the point home, he had Way bring him to the ring in a wheelchair, explaining that he has such a power wheel that if he can’t swing his arm, he can’t walk. I’ll buy it.
It was all classic comedy heel, something that still amazes me how Johnny plays it. Facing the video screen to supply X-rays with identifying the wrong limb, instructing the way to turn the wheel chair to cope with the hard work, it was all hilarious stuff.
William Regle played the role of a party popper, claiming that Gargo had succeeded in the contest and that Johnny’s argument showed all the wrong things. This allowed Kushida to sneak behind the way, making it ridiculous when the waitress got in his way.
Later that night, Kushi faced Austin Theory, who was challenged by the North American champion when the match ended in Duke. After the match, Dexter Lumis stopped this from becoming two on one put and Lumis and Kushida completed their night with double performances.
While Lumis has enough reasons not to choose Way, he feels a little shoeless here. I would call it the fifth cycle, but technically it would be the fourth cycle, which is the full sum of the wheels.
Picking the wrong fight
Why Tian Stable seems to be his first program.
To begin with, I Think Tian Sha is a static name. After last week’s original video, it was possible that Mei Ying’s name was sold after she sold her soul to a dragon to become immortal. But given the tian why the video is on the screen as it all comes out, and Wade Barrett referred to it as Mei Ying this week, I use it as a static name until I see something suggesting.
His first fight will be against Casey Catanzaro and Caden Carter. Casey was ringing while Xia Lee was squashing Cora Jade, trying to reach a woman he thought was his friend. (This is a great move in wrestling, friendship is not really shown on TV, though it does establish friendship after the fact.)
To make matters worse, Carter Ying’s face lit up, probably upsetting the Black Queen. May also suffocated Boa until Lee effectively disposed of both Cayden and Casey.
I’m not sure how this will work. Right now, Tian Sha is an active wrestler in Xia Lima. Ying just watches and Boa doesn’t wrestle. It’s not that he’s going to fight one of these women, but it’s weird that they didn’t even give him a couple of squash. Maybe NXT doesn’t feel like it’s as ready as Xia.
So right now, a woman will fight with a tag team. Unless there’s a vehicle to get to Maine in this ring. She only observes fights, it will take her a little more work to reveal the spirit of the dragon.
All the rest:
– Cameron Grimes, very rich from investing in Gamestop and then Dojecoin after returning to full sale. This is a funny turn for this character. He’s still a reckless idiot, but now he’s very rich. It’s a fun wrinkle that will be fun to follow. I also look forward to when he loses all this.
– Got video package treatment in both major title matches. Which is fine, but both matches lacked real heat. They can benefit from one more part to try to add a little more play to those matches.
– Santos Escobar sent Joachim Wilde and Raલl Mendoza to attack the Carian Cross. Of course the cross destroyed them instead. (Only the latter position was shown.) Escobar will face Cross next week.
This was a solid demonstration. Neither of the main title angles had new additions to them, both are presented in video format. This meant that Dusty Samis had to carry the day.
And in general, that match was all good. Although I think next time, they should put men’s and women’s dusty tournaments in space. I understand why they wanted to run them at the same time, but these last few weeks have felt like a tag team overkill. The second option is announcing it soon and dragging it round longer so they don’t have to cram every episode with them. This wasn’t as big of an issue as they were making proganda progress in the tournament, but this episode also had some dusty classic fatigue.
Beyond establishing what the two dusty finals will be, the show did nothing to add to Sunday’s takeover. Johnny Garga is always entertaining.
Grade: b
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