6 Ups & 2 Downs From Last Night's WWE NXT (July 27)
Brooklyn Beckons!
Last week's WWE draft heralded tough times for the NXT brand. Even though some of NXT's top stars - men and women like Samoa Joe, Shinsuke Nakamura, Bayley, and Asuka - are still part of the developmental brand for the time being, the losses of talent like Finn Balor, American Alpha, Nia Jax, and Alexa Bliss are sure to hurt the modestly-sized roster.
Nevertheless, NXT moves forward, building up for what's ostensibly its grandest event of the year - TakeOver: Back to Brooklyn. For the second consecutive SummerSlam weekend, Brooklyn's Barclays Center will be sold out, making the brand's only arena-sized show of the year look like a true main-event spectacle. On this week's episode of NXT TV, the build to TakeOver began in earnest.
While that special should be one of the best shows in NXT's short history, this week's edition of the television broadcast left something to be desired. It wasn't bad - there were certainly more good segments than poor ones, and the stuff that was below par wasn't too objectionable. Still, something similar could be said about the stuff that was good - it wasn't great. It's easy to be spoiled after American Alpha-Revival and Balor-Nakamura, but this week's show wasn't in that league.
Here are 6 ups and 2 downs from July 27's NXT:
8. Up - The Match Is Signed
NXT opened up with the arrival of Shinsuke Nakamura, who was making his first appearance since scoring a major win over Finn Balor two weeks ago. His opponent was Wesley Blake, who's been repackaged with new music that seemed to herald a definitive end to his team - if not his relationship - with Buddy Murphy.
Nakamura was electric in this brief squash match, playing off of Blake excellently. When the former NXT Tag Team Champion blew Nakamura kisses, "The King of Strong Style" caught them, tossed them to the mat, and stepped on them. Blake did eventually get the heat on Nakamura, but it didn't last particularly long and the popular star soon hit all his signature moves en route to a well-received victory.
The big news came after the match, though - following Nakamura's victory, NXT General Manager William Regal came out onto the stage to announce that "The King of Strong Style" is officially the number one contender to Samoa Joe's NXT Championship. He continued to say that the match will headline the Back to Brooklyn special, and the fans and Nakamura were delighted.