SmackDown Tag Team Makes Surprise Return To NXT 2.0

SmackDown team show up at Roderick Storm's invitation to challenge Creed Brothers.

by Scott Carlson
NXT 2.0 Logo Io Shirai
WWE

Continuing a recent trend of WWE superstars showing up on NXT 2.0, current SmackDown tag team the Viking Raiders popped up Tuesday at the invitation of Roderick Strong.

Strong was dressing down his fellow Diamond Mine stablemates, in particular the Creed Brothers for failing to capture the NXT Tag Team Championship on two occasions. Julius and Brutus pointed out that they weren't pinned at Stand and Deliver and ran through the majority of the gauntlet match a couple of weeks ago, but that wasn't good enough for Roddy, who presented the Raiders as their opponents for next week.

But the Vikings weren't just here for fun this week. The former NXT and Raw tag champs challenged Malik Blade & Edris Enofe in a decent, competitive little match that saw the underdogs clearly overmatched but hanging in with the bruisers for a while. After the Raiders picked up their inevitable win, they shook hands with Blade & Enofe.

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The Creeds then came out for a staredown, just to solidify next week's match, which could be a really fun, brawling battle at Spring Breakin'. Both teams are known for a bruising, smashmouth style, and it stands to reason that the Creed Brothers could learn a good bit from the veteran Vikings.

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Considering that the Raiders' last televised match was them losing a two-on-one handicap match to Omos (via countout), this is a welcome change of scenery for the duo.

Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.