BRM Reviews the 7/15/2020 NXT

[Big Red Machine]

KEITH LEE SPEECH- a nice speech, but a bad segment
Did anyone else’s TV get very choppy and occasionally black out and mute during this? That made his very hard for me to watch. His speech was nice.
Then he called out Dijakovic. He’s going to give Dijakovic a shot at both titles because Dijakovic pushed him to be better in their matches together. SNORE. How about giving a title shot to someone who has actually earned it? Not every babyface title reign has to begin with the champ saying “I’m a fighting champion, so I want to defend my title right away!”

DAMIAN PRIEST vs. CAMERON GRIMES- 7/10
I was completely shocked when Grimes didn’t jump Priest during his entrance. I thought that was pretty much a certainty. I liked the match, but wished Grimes could have been more competitive- or even won. He’s starting to feel like a jobber to the stars instead of a real player on the rise
Priest indicated that he wanted to face the winner of Lee vs. Dijakovic title match.

THATCH AS THATCH CAN TRAINING- This was the first one of these that I thought was particularly good. It gave us a bit more of an insight into Thatcher’s character than the sadistic wrestling trainer trope he has been since this started.

SHOTZI BLACKHEART vs. INDI HARTWELL- 3/10… but definitely a finish I’ll be watching over and over again, cackling with glee.
Thankfully, babyface Tom Phillips is standing up for Robert Stone and calling Shotzi Blackheart out for the asshole she was last week. Beth Phoenix, of course, defended Shotzi by treating the whole thing like a f*cking joke. She’s supposed to be a babyface, too.
They were having a perfectly fine match for a few minutes when Robert Stone limped down to the ring in a boot. He distracted the referee so that Aliyah could shove Shotzi off the top rope. Indi hit a big boot and pinned Shotzi. It’s nice to see the villain get her comeuppance. YOU DESERVE IT! *clap* *clap* *clap*clap*clap* YOU DESERVE IT! *clap* *clap* *clap*clap*clap*

MCKENZIE MITCHELL INTERVIEWS TEGAN NOX- good
I love that Tegan’s go-toes for people that she is going to be a champion like are Kane and Molly Holly. It makes her feel so much more authentic than just listing off whatever combination of Hogan/Flair/Savage/Bret/Dusty/Rock/Austin/Cena/Angle that we’d usually get in WWE because their script always calls for pushing the narrative of the greatness of certain people. I’m not saying those people weren’t great. I’m just saying that it feels a lot more real for some people to acknowledge that their favorite wrestlers when they were growing up weren’t the super tippy-top stars that the promotion loves to market as such.
LEGADO DEL FANTASMA SIT AROUND AND HAVE DRINKS- HATED it
This was three dudes sitting around, drinking wine, and toasting themselves, done as a multi-camera shoot, with music and clips, and it just felt completely unnecessary. There was nothing said here that wouldn’t have been better Santos Escobar cutting a promo right into the camera.
I also didn’t like him switching into Spanish for just one line when talking to wo other people who are fluent both English and Spanish. I don’t know about everyone else, but even when the other person and I are fluent in more than one of the same language, the conversation tends to stick in either one or the other.
I was also a little confused by way Escobar talked is buddies up. Wilde much more fits the role of the “technical assassin” and Mendoza much more fits the role of “if you see this guy coming at you in the air, that’s it.”

NXT TITLE & NXT NORTH AMERICAN TITLE MATCH: Keith Lee(c)(c) vs. Dominik Dijakovic- 7.5/10
Beth brushed right up against breaking kayfabe and outright saying “we’re working together to do something artistic,” in her comment about even though they were competing for the title, she and Mickie James always tried to “make the crowd think they had just seen something special.” I can do some mental gymnastics and argue that by something special she meant that they were each trying to win in a Rousey-esque dominating and quick fashion, but Beth’s already on my sh*t-list for one Stupid Announcer Quote tonight, so can we please maybe not talk about wrestlers putting on matches to “entertain the fans” or whatever similar euphemisms there are for having critically-acclaimed match?
This wasn’t like their past matches, which was good… but it also was nowhere near as spectacular as some of their past stuff (especially their indy stuff). Lee won, but you already guessed that. We got a nice show of respect afterwards.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
The lights went off and Scarlet showed up with a bag. She dumped it out on the apron, revealing the pieces of the hourglass that Lee had stomped. Someone played with a smoke machine on the apron. I thought this would have been better if the crowd hadn’t been banging on the plexiglass and making all sorts of noise.

MCKENZIE MITCHELL’S INTERVIEW WITH DOMINIK DIJAKOVIC IS INTERRUPTED BY KARRION KROSS-
I guess the camera shaking there was meant to indicate that someone else (Scarlet?) yanked the camera away from the cameraman?
Anyway, Kross showed up and got in Dijakovic’s face. Dijakovic asked if he had something to say. Kross responded by saying something in what my brother identified as Spanish (I can’t tell it apart from Portuguese). Dijakovic went to leave, but then attacked Kross and they brawled. Kross wion the brawl with a suplex onto the concrete floor. He said “tick-tock” and left.

TIMOTHY THATCHER vs. DENZELL DEJOURNETTE- no rating, great segment
Thatcher and Dejournette did some amateur stuff before Thatcher got the submission victory. He kept the hold locked in for a lot longer than necessary, so Oney Lorcan came out to chase him off.

ROBERT STONE APOLOGIZES TO KILLIAN DAIN EARLIER TODAY- what the f*ck is going on?
Apparently Dain was angry last week because Stone accidentally spilled coffee on him in their segment. I did not notice that. Did anyone else?
Aliyah ran in with some pictures that Dexter Lumis drew. One of them was of Killian Dain, which apparently greatly offended Dain, because he ordered Stone to get him a match with Lumis last week. This was SOOOOOOO random.

Both Lumis vs. Dain and Kross vs. Dijakovic are official for next week.

NXT WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH: Io Shirai(c) vs. Tegan Nox- 8/10
Awesome stuff. Not much else to say other than that I actually dug Tegan doing the Kane and Molly tributes because they actually set it up well so it meant more.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
Dakota Kai laid Io out on the ramp with a big running kick.


This was a very good episode of NXT, giving us some big matches and moving things along very nicely. Also, Shotzi’s sin came back to bite her in the ass and cause her to lose, which makes me happy.


STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Beth Phoenix is outraged about the finish to Shotzi vs. Indi, telling us that she “can’t believe” what she just saw.
Really, Beth? You spent a decade as a pro wrestler, and you can’t believe that someone who was wronged the previous week would come out and screw the person who wronged them out of a match?