BRM Reviews the 1/22/2020 NXT

[Big Red Machine]

DUSTY RHODES TAG TEAM CLASSIC SEMIFINAL MATCH: Grizzled Young Veterans vs. Undisputed Era (Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly) (w/Adam Cole & Roderick Strong)- 6.75/10
A fine match that GYV won after Imperium distracted UE. Now I know who to root against in the finals.

TONI STORM VS. RHEA RIPLEY VIDEO PACKAGE- good

SHOTZI BLACKHEART VIDEO PACKAGE- bad
This is exactly the sort of “playing an angry pro wrestler” attitude that she seemed to have that drove me nuts in EVOLVE last year. She just comes off to me as shallow to the point of being borderline phony. I mean look at her, swinging power tools around and wearing that goofy 1940’s motorcycle helmet with horns on it. Compare her to Rhea Ripley, who comes off as an actual angry badass instead of someone who just plays one on TV.

TONI STORM vs. IO SHIRAI- 6.25/10
A decent match that ended with a frustrating run-in by Bianca that felt like it only happened so that 1) no one had to do the job and 2) to set up Rhea Ripley coming out for a post-match schmoz so that we could plug the Rhea vs. Bianca title match at Worlds’ Collide.
Toni Storm wound up winning the schmoz and posed with the NXT Women’s Title. She was heavily booed for doing so.

CATHY KELLEY INTERVIEWS UNDISPUTED ERA- good
They’re angry about getting screwed by Imperium but Cole calls on them to now focus all of their attention on making sure Roddy retains his title against Keith Lee tonight.

ILJA DRAGUNOV PROMO- much better than most of what he’s done in WWE so far. He cut a promo to build up his match with Finn Balor at Worlds Collide.

FINN BALOR vs. JOAQUIN WILDE- squash

CATHY KELLEY INTERVIEWS SHAYNA BASZLER- GREAT!
All Shotzi Blackheart did last week was make herself the first victim on Shayna’s path back to the top.

SHAYNA BASZLER vs. SHOTZI BLACKHEART- 6.5/10
Shayna won a sold match, and sent everyone a message by keeping the Kirafuta Clutch locked in longer than she needed to.

TEGAN NOX VS. DAKOTA KAI VIDEO PACKAGE- fine
They’re having a match next week.

CATHY KELLEY INTERVIEWS ANGEL GARZA- He did as good of a job as he possibly could to build up a title defense where only one of the three challengers are known.

DUSTY RHODES TAG TEAM CLASSIC SEMIFINAL MATCH: Matt Riddle & Pete Dunne vs. Imperium (Fabian Aichner & Marcel Barthel)- 6.75/10
Another decent match, but one whose finish felt frustratingly obvious for such a big spot.

OBNOXIOUSLY OBLIGATORY FACE-OFF ON THE STAGE BETWEEN THE TWO TEAMS- meh
It was mostly Gibson talking. He accused Pete Dunne of holding them down. What is this backstage Vince Russo bullsh*t? Why can’ they just want to win the f*cking tournament.
That being said, Riddle responding to Zack Gibson’s rant (which had included the phrase “joint manipulation” with “Bro… I don’t really know what you just said, but you said something about ‘manipulating a joint?’,” is probably going to be the funniest thing you hear on a wrestling show all month. The fans responded by chanting “Riddle’s gonna smoke you!”

NXT NORTH AMERICAN TITLE MATCH: Roderick Strong(c) (w/Undisputed Era) vs. Keith Lee- 7/10
Lee overcomes the damage on his knee to get the win.

UNDISPUTED ERA AND IMPERIUM BRAWL- again… it felt almost obligatory.

This wasn’t a very engaging show from NXT. So much of it felt either contrived (like the women’s segment) or like the results were so clear as to be almost uninteresting. It worked as a go-home show for Worlds Collide, but as a wrestling show of its own, I didn’t really do much for me. It wasn’t bad, but it certainly wasn’t good, either.