BRM Reviews the 2/17/2021 NXT

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- great!
After the TakeOver recap video package, we went to the announcers for their usual opening hype, but Kyle O’Reilly came out and interrupted. He demanded that Adam Cole explain himself. “When you’re done, I’m probably going to punch you in the face” but “you’re still my brother, so I’m at least willing to hear you out.”
Instead of Cole, he got Roderick Strong, who said that Kyle was right when he said that UE was a “special” faction (i.e. one where they were true brothers and weren’t going to turn on each other eventually), and he should know Cole well enough to know that Cole just acted out of emotion… at which pint Kyle became angry and told Roddy that he doesn’t need Roddy to come out and play peacekeeper. He needs to hear it from the horse’s mouth.
Roddy kept approaching, so Kyle warned Roddy not to get into the ring, eventually admitting it was because he wasn’t sure if he could trust him. He called out Cole again, but this time instead of Cole he got Finn Balor.
Kyle said he wasn’t looking for Balor, but Balor told Kyle he was looking for him. He seems to think Kyle was in on Cole attacking him, which made Balor seem insanely paranoid. Roddy insists that Kyle had nothing to do with it, so Balor now thinks that Rodd must have been in on it, too.
Lorcan, Dunne, and Burch took this opportunity to jump Balor and Roddy while they were arguing on the ramp, and beat down all three babyfaces. This did a fine job of setting up a main event, delaying the big issue temporarily (though I really think they need to tell us that Cole isn’t here, because otherwise I don’t buy Kyle not tearing up the locker room looking for him), and establishing Roddy’s neutrality between Cole and Kyle. The real highlight of this segment, though, was Kyle O’Reilly, who was absolutely tremendous at conveying the necessary emotions.

WILLIAM REGAL MAKES SOME ANNOUNCEMENTS- good
First, he showed us a video of Escobar doing the “we’ll do this on my time, not on your time” bit and announcing the he would no-show tonight’s match against Karrion Kross. Regal announced that the match has been rescheduled for next week… and if Escobar doesn’t show up, he will be stripped of his NXT Cruiserweight Title and suspended indefinitely.
He also announced Dunne, Burch, & Lorcan vs. Roddy, Kyle, & Balor as tonight’s main event.
Props to Wade Barrett reminding us that there is another Cruiserweight Champion over on NXT UK who would love to see Escobar stripped of the title that he considers invalid.

WE ARE SHOWN VIDEO OF DEXTER LUMIS ABDUCTING AUSTIN THEORY ON SUNDAY AFTER TAKEOVER- This is crossing a line and should be a huge deal, but only Wade Barrett seems to be concerned about Theory. This seems like something William Regal really should have addressed.

EMBER MOON & SHOTZI BLACKHEART vs. THE WAY (Candice LeRae & Indi Hartwell)- 6/10
Johnny Gargano as on commentary for this match. He could have treated Theory’s abduction more seriously as well. Beth Phoenix claimed that The Way’s heelish ways led to this abduction, but that’s clearly not true, as Lumis started stalking them before they had done anything to him, and he hasn’t gone around kidnapping other heels.
We briefly cut away from the match to show Dexter Lumis’ unmarked white kidnapper’s van pulling up to the arena. When we cut away to it a second time, Johnny decided to go investigate. Eventually he rescued Theory from the apparently empty van and brought him to the ramp. Candice ran up the ramp to hug Theory, leaving Indi alone so Ember Moon could roll her up. This match should have been so much better, but it was hard to pay attention to the match with all of this goofy kidnapping crap going on. Then we had the babyfaces win when one heel abandoned the other for a completely understandable reason, so the babyfaces didn’t gain anything.
Dexter Lumis had apparently been dressing Theory up in a -shirt way too small for him, flip-flops, a fanny-pack, and adult-sized boxers. How could anyone possibly think this man is a babyface? And how is Wade Barrett the only announcer concerned by this?

PAT MCAFEE VIDEO ABOUT HOW HE WAS TOTALLY RIGHT ABOUT ADAM COLE BEING A SCUMBAG AND THE WHOLE IWC WAS TOO DUMB TO SEE IT- tremendous!

MCKENZIE MITCHELL INTERVIEWS KUSHIDA IN THE TRAINER’S ROOM EARLIER TODAY- meh
KUSHIDA says he’s not done with Johnny Gargano. That’s fine, but unless I’m misremembering, didn’t Gargano win clean? This made it seem like KUSHIDA has some reason to have a rematch.
Bronson Reed showed up and said that he, too, wasn’t done with Johnny Gargano. Did they even have an issue? Reed says that if it comes down to him or KUSHIDA getting a title shot, they’ll cross that bridge when they come to it. It’s good for these guys to want title shots, but this segment made me feel like I was missing things, which I shouldn’t be because I’ve watched every single episode of NXT since May of 2013.

MALCOLM BIVENS BOTHERS KUSHIDA IN THE TRAINER’S ROOM- good
After Reed left, that sly bastard Malcolm Bivens suggested that the clearly not fully healed but still medically cleared KUSHIDA wrestle his client Tyler Rust tonight, and went to go find Regal. Bivens is great. I can imagine him hanging out in the trainer’s room all day to see who is in injured so he can get Rust signed to wrestle them.

ISAIAH “SWERVE” SCOTT vs. LEON RUFF- 5.75/10
Ruff got an upset win via roll-up. Scott assaulted him after the match, completing his heel turn. Scott insisted that Ruff has been “handed everything.” While I don’t think that’s true, I also don’t agree with Beth Phoenix that Ruff has “earned all of his opportunities.” I won’t argue that he has post-facto justified what he was given, but it’s pretty clear that he did nothing to earn that first title shot he was given, when Gargano picked him to be a tomato can.

KACY CATANZARO & KAYDEN CARTER PROMO- fine
They talked about Xia Li and about their match tonight. They often border on getting annoying without quite getting there.

KACY CATANZARO & KAYDEN CARTER vs. THE ROBERT STONE BRAND (Jessi Kamea & Aliyah) (w/Robert Stone)- 4/10
This was fine but was also kept short. Team KC won.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- fine
Xia Li and Boa came out Kacy tried to talk to Xia Li, but Xia grabbed her wrist and painted two black stripes on her hand like was done to her and Boa. Xia said he would hurt Kacy next week.

MALCOLM BIVENS PROMO ON BEHALF OF TYLER RUST- good BUILD FOR Rust vs. KUSHIDA

DUSTY RHODES TAG TEAM CLASSIC TROPHY PRESENTATIONS- very bad
Beth Phoenix was our MC and gave a big speech. She brought out MSK, who were annoying. Then she brought out Dakota Kai & Raquel Gonzalez. Those two were quickly interrupted by Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler, who had a segment with Raquel and Dakota while the others faded into the background… except for the few times we cut to them to show them eating popcorn which 1) where’d they get the popcorn from? and 2) made the whole thing into a joke.
Dakota and Raquel were acting like babyfaces all of a sudden even though they have done nothing to turn, so that wasn’t good. A lot of the dialogue was also pretty bad, and the way this was done made MSK- new talents who you are trying to make into stars with this tournament win- feel like afterthoughts. Then we made them feel like jokes when they started playing around in the popcorn.

FOOTAGE OF KYLE O’REILLY AND RODERICK STRONG ARGUING IN THE PARKING LOT- fine build to the main event.

ANNOYING CAMERON GRIMES VIDEO- annoying
Also, he’s late for work again.

STILLS OF TONI STORM ATTACKING IO SHIRAI DURING A PHOTO-SHOOT- decent

KUSHIDA vs. TYLER RUST (w/Malcolm Bivens)- 7/10
Rust had a great showing and they told a good story with the injured body parts, but Rust losing to someone who it was acknowledged was injured means his “good showing” really doesn’t get gain that much for him.

ZOEY STARK VIDEO PACKAGE- They have footage of her from NXT and hitting big moves, but I have no idea who she is. She apparently debuts next

L.A. KNIGHT PROMO- meh
He’s a good talker, but he’s talking himself over so much that if he doesn’t immediately start winning titles, he’s going to look completely delusional.

VALENTINA FEROZ vs. ZOEY STARK- good squash
Stark looked quite vicious.

KARRION KROSS & SCARLET PROMO- great build for next week’s match against Santos Escobar

PETE DUNNE, DANNY BURCH, & ONEY LORCAN vs. FINN BALOR & UNDISPUTED ERA (Adam Cole & Kyle O’Reilly)- 7.5/10
We were told that Lorcan had been fined an undisclosed amount of money for pushing a referee on Sunday. I was pretty sure it was Dunne who it the referee. Maybe Vic misspoke.
This was a great match with an excellent storyline finish.
First we got a ref bump, allowing Cole to interfere and take Balor out (and the ref again). Cole then took Kyle out with a Bicycle Kick and a vertical suplex on the steps and left. Roddy tried to stop the heels from using a title belt as a weapon, but made the mistake of putting his hand on Balor’s shoulder from behind (I assume it was intended as a gesture of support), so Balor acted on instinct and hit Roddy with a Pele Kick. Balor realized that he hit his teammate, but I wasn’t able to read from his face if he was regretful that he had hit Roddy, or was unhappy that Roddy had grabbed his title belt. This distraction allowed Pete Dunne to sneak in and hit Balor with the Bitter End for the win. After the heels headed up the ramp, Cole came back and attacked Balor and posed with the title. So we’ve now set up Roddy vs. Balor and Dunne vs. Balor in addition to Cole vs. Kyle and Cole vs. Balor that we already had set up.


This was a fine episode of NXT, moving storylines along and giving us some very good wrestling. The biggest strike against it was definitely the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic fallout, which was terrible for pretty much everyone involved (Raquel Gonzalez came off well, but that was about it).

[XIV]

I didn’t enjoy the opening segment, I don’t think Kyle was quite good enough in acting his part, but it was set out well with how Roddy and Balor interjected themselves.

Am I the only one who thinks that the camera operator could have done more to draw attention to Theory being chloroformed.

It was great to see Pat McAfee. The best heel on the WWE payroll.

LA Knight needs to win the North American Championship quick, or you’re right BRM, it’s going to be a detriment to him.

Regal is probably the best use of authority figure I’ve seen in years.
He comes in, acts like the authority should, gets his point across and doesn’t make it about him.

The wrestling in the show was what you’d expect from an NXT show. Pretty reliable without being incredible.

One of their better recent shows to be fair.