Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE NXT: Asuka and Nikki Cross beat the holy hell out of one another in a legitimate match-of-the-year candidate, so you should watch that ASAP if you haven’t yet.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for July 5, 2017.
Best: The Fine Art Of Misdirection
This week’s episode of NXT — episode 400! — is surprisingly light on the amount of matches. In fact, we only get two: The show-opening tag match between Kassius Ohno and Hideo Itami (forever known as Hideohno) and SAnitY’s Alexander Wolfe and Killian Dain, and the show-closing title defense by Bobby Roode against Roddy Strong. But what the show lacked in in-ring diversity, it more than made up for in match quality and storytelling.
SAnitY vs. Hideohno was an engaging tag match that pitted an uneasy alliance against a team designed solely for chaos, and the result was pretty much as expected: There was some lovely misdirection on behalf of SAnitY that caused Ohno to leave his post and miss the hot tag, then later, once he helped Itami clear the ring, he demanded to be tagged in only to be rebuked — which left Itami walking into a blind tag and taking a massive cross-body from Killian Dain. The look on Alexander Wolfe’s face as he’s about to eat a GTS, knowing the pain that’s about to be delivered to Itami for not paying attention, is simply phenomenal. Between this match and Nikki Cross’ main event last week, this is the most I’ve liked SAnitY in months and months, and I hope it continues.
Supplemental Best for Ohno and Dain getting into it, because I have been waiting for those two to scrap for months, and I hope they get a singles match soon. But it looks like Dain has his sights set on someone else …
Worst/Best: The Tale Of Two Title Shots
We get a backstage interview with Drew McIntyre, who says since he’s undefeated, he deserves a title shot against whoever wins between Bobby Roode and Roddy Strong tonight. Keep in mind that since returning, McIntyre’s big wins have been against Sean Maluta and Rob Ryzin. I’m pretty sure I could beat those dudes. He’s then reminded that Killian Dain is also undefeated (even though his biggest singles win is against No Way Jose, which pfft), and he says he doesn’t care who he has to face, because he’ll beat them all. He then gets the sh*t kicked out of him by Dain outside Full Sail in a web-exclusive clip. Gotta watch whose name you put in your mouth, Drew.
On the flipside, we get an impromptu press conference in the Performance Center with Ember Moon slowly reading cue cards that say “FIGHT ASUKA?” on them which gets awesomely interrupted by Ruby Riot, who straight-up punks her out by reminding her that Moon already had her shot and lost, as did Nikki Cross—now, it’s her turn. She then rolls back into the ring to continue training, and Ember meekly continues her canned response about Asuka. Once again, Ember Moon’s mic work continues to kill her in-ring persona, and once again, Ruby Riot looks awesome.
Best: Let Them Eat Cake
This segment with Billie Kay and Peyton Royce truly, honestly felt like an improv exercise, where the women were given one word, “cake,” right before the camera turned on and were told to riff on it until the scene was interrupted by Andrade “Cien” Almas and his unnamed female partner arguing. I loved every single second of this, mainly because the Iconic Duo once again are the best part of any NXT episode they’re on, but also because cake is delicious. Can we safely call these two the Australian LayCool? Because damned if everything they do isn’t flawless.
Best: LOL Aliyah
In a recap of a Mae Young Classic qualifying match not previously broadcast, we see NXT’s resident cat cosplayer Aliyah lose to a complete unknown in Bianca Belair (aka Bianca Blair, who signed with NXT last year). Dogg, you’ve had more than 100 matches in NXT and you can’t even get in a tournament specifically designed to elevate female talent and help make stars. If that doesn’t make you start looking for the red tag in your locker, I don’t know what will.
Best: Reality Bites
Before we get to the main event, each competitor cuts a brief promo about the match, with the highlight being Bobby Roode telling Roddy Strong that he’s spent the past few weeks living in a fairytale — and he’s about to be brought back to reality. The resulting match was a barn-burner, too: Roode — looking more cut than ever, by the way — toys with Roddy early and goes for a taunt, only to get dropkicked in return, so he quickly dials down his arrogance and dials up his intensity, spending 20 minutes working over Roddy’s leg in order to neutralize his arsenal of backbreakers, starting with an innovative steel stairs spot where Strong’s leg got caught in the gap and Roode took advantage.
Throughout the match, Roddy is able to connect with a variety of backbreakers that had to get more and more creative as his leg grew weaker and weaker, my favorite of which was when he hoisted Roode up in the corner and just dropped him on the top turnbuckle instead of coming down on his leg. As hard as I’ve been on Roddy (and as even harder as Brandon had been on him before he gifted this column to me), I have to be totally honest and say the dude worked his ass off here, and sold his leg like a champ. He even managed to kick out of a Glorious DDT, which legitimately surprised me — and Percy Watson, of all people, saves the day, saying Roode waited a half-second too long before going for the cover, thereby protecting his finish. Percy Watson did this. What world are we living in?!?
Just when it seems like all hope is lost, a sweaty, exhausted Roddy fires up big-time and hits a double-legged backbreaker to get the 3 count — but Roode’s foot is under the rope. Somewhere, Dusty Rhodes is smiling, daddeh. Roode capitalizes on the confusion and knocks Strong to the outside, then absolutely plants him with a second Glorious DDT right in front of his mom and fiance (who also deserve credit for being engaged for the whole match — as much as I love when the Miz’s parents show up and seemingly have no interest in watching their son compete, it’s even better when family members are legitimately emotionally invested, as these two were).
Roode rolls Strong back in the ring and connects with a third, totally unnecessary Glorious DDT, to not only put him away but put him in his place at the back of the line. Bobby looks like a million bucks, Roddy put up a hell of a fight and walked away with the crowd chanting his name instead of singing along to “Glorious Domination,” and we all got one hell of a main event. Thank you, NXT, for delivering the goods two weeks in a row.
Next Week: Johnny Gargano returns to the Full Sail Arena for the first time since he was brutally beaten down by his former tag team partner Tommaso Ciampa.
