Hey look, we’re doing one of these!
For the first time, With Leather is giving the funniest fans on the Internet an open discussion thread for WWE NXT, the show that started off as a crummy collection of self-defeated obstacle challenges and became the best WWE product in the world.
Tonight, the promotion’s first “pay-per-view,” the badly-capitalized NXT arRIVAL, airs live on the WWE Network at 8:00 pm ET / 7:00 pm CT. Here’s your complete (announced) card:
1. Ladder Match for the NXT Championship: Bo Dallas (c) vs. Adrian Neville
2. NXT Women’s Championship Match: Paige (c) vs. Emma
3. Antonio Cesaro vs. Sami Zayn
Let us know who you think’s gonna win in our comments section below. Here are my thoughts:
– He’s still “Antonio” Cesaro on NXT, right? Regardless, I think Sami Zayn will beat Cesaro. Cesaro is becoming an important cog on the main roster and Zayn’s entire story up until this point is that he HAS to beat Cesaro before he can move on. If you’ve missed their three previous classics (not counting the countless matches they had when they were Claudio Castagnoli and El Generico …’s friend?), match 1 featured Zayn getting a surprise win, match 2 gave Cesaro a dominant response and match 3, the 2-out-of-3 falls classic from last July, is one of the best WWE matches in years. No matter what happens, this is worth tuning in to see. You’re gonna be treating Zayn like Punk and Bryan in a few years anyway.
– I expect Paige to defeat Emma and retain the NXT Women’s Championship. Paige is the first champion, and this’ll be a lot of peoples’ fist time seeing her. Emma has already gotten a spot on Raw and Smackdown, and hopefully this match will help more casual WWE fans see that she’s got a hell of a lot more going on than what happens on those shows. Emma needs to be understood first in her natural environment. Paige needs to hurry up and be a huge deal so we can continue to elevate the quality of women’s wrestling in WWE, and maybe have one Diva without a grisly tan.
– If Paige retains and we need at least one major title change on NXT’s first special, that means Adrian Neville should win the ladder match and become the new NXT Champion. Explaining Bo Dallas to strangers is going to be this week’s most difficult task. All you need to know here is that Neville is THE MAN THAT GRAVITY FORGOT and he’s in a ladder match, so you’re gonna see something memorable and ridiculous. Bo’s had a lengthy title reign, and it’s time to bring him up to be Bray Wyatt’s Cousin Oliver or whatever.
Enjoy the show, everybody, and tell everyone you know to watch the special (the “pay-per-scription?”) and join in.
When the show’s over, you can watch me talk developmental wonderlands and tossy European uppercuts on Aubrey Sitterson’s Straight Shoot, because I am the Internet’s #1 NXT homer. Don’t miss that, okay?