This Week In NXT 5th Edition: News and Recap

Welcome to the 5th edition of This Week in NXT, your weekly dose of news, plus a recap of the hottest brand in wrestling today!

I just finished watching this week’s episode, and it was another excellent show from the black and yellow brand. I even wore my Adam Cole (Bay Bay) shirt to represent him and the rest of the Undisputed Era. Hopefully I can get their new shirt they wore last week. Now, let’s get into some news before I recap this week’s show.

WWE has announced that Evolve’s 10th Anniversary Special will air live on the WWE network July 13, at 8 p.m. ET. The event will take place in Philadelphia, PA, at the 2300 arena.

A couple of the matches announced so far are Adam Cole vs. Akira Tozawa for the NXT Title. The WWE Cruiserweight Champion, Drew Gulak, will go one-on-one with Matt Riddle. Both are going to be good matchups.

This is huge. WWE has worked with Evolve on numerous occasions. Current NXT Tag Team Champions, The Street Profits, won the titles over there last year.

To stream an actual show on the WWE Network is a big win for Evolve. It will give their company some great mainstream exposure.

Now, AEW is running a show that same day. Many feel this is WWE’s counter to that. I can not blame them. AEW is not there yet, but they are coming and should not be taken lightly.

This should be a good show. I have not watched Evolve before, so I look forward to seeing what they have to offer. Now, let’s get into this week’s recap.

The show kicks off with the first match of the NXT Breakout Tournament, that was put in place last week by GM William Regal.

It was a contest between Joaquin Wilde (formally known as DJ Z in Impact Wrestling) and Angel Garza. They showed a brief introduction for both guys before the match, so we can learn a little more about them.

This match was amazing. Both men brought some very unique offense to the table. The highlight for me was when Garza hit The Spanish Fly off the top rope but only got a two count. I knew for sure he had Wilde pinned there.

Garza picks up the win with the Butterfly Hook Stunner to advance in the tournament. I hope all the other matches are this good. The other opponents have some big shoes to fill. I cannot wait to see more. Like I said last week, I hope they do one of these for the women.

We get a video package for Kushida. He talks about being in an interesting position at the moment. He went on to talk about his next potential opponent. They showed highlights from his time in NXT so far. It was interesting because he mentioned Raw, Smackdown, and 205 Live. Could we see him get called up already? I doubt it, but it would not surprise me to see him show up on 205 Live or Smackdown.

Drew Gulak is the Cruiserweight Champion, and Kushida has two victories over him. With Smackdown moving to Fox in October, they are going to want to shake things up there as well. This is something to keep an eye on in the coming weeks.

They showed footage from last week of Damian Preist leaving the arena. Preist said we have not seen anything yet. He also mentioned that his name will last forever. I do not know what is next for Preist, but I feel he has a big upside. Maybe he would be someone Kushida feuds with. Keith Lee would not be a bad choice either.

Our next match was between the new NXT Tag Team Champions, The Street Profits, vs. The Forgotten Sons (Steve Cutlet and Wesley Blake).

This match turned into a title match, after Montez Ford mentioned it when he got on the mic before the match started.

Angelo Dawkins has stepped his game up. He was impressive to me in the match. It looked like The Profits were going to pick up the win, until Jaxson Ryker got involved. The match was thrown out, and the two teams begin to brawl.

Danny Burch and Oney Lorcan come out to help The Profits in the brawl. After clearing the ring of The Forgotten Sons, both guys grab the Tag Titles. They eventually hand the belts back over to Ford and Dawkins. Burch tells Dawkins that the titles are there’s, but they owe them one.

This looks like it is setting up a Tag Title match with these two teams. The Forgotten Sons are still in the hunt as well. The tag team scene in NXT is getting interesting.

Another video was shown briefly of former Sanity member, Killian Dain, in a dark room watching videos. It was not shown long, but you could definitely tell it was him. He looks like he is set to return any minute now. I do not remember the last time he was on TV. I look forward to seeing what is next for his character, especially since he will be on his own.

We get Vanessa Borne and Aliyah continuing to talk trash about Mia Yim. They were critical of the video package they showed last week, talking about her upbringing. Aliyah mentioned she has a match with her coming up. They did not announce when it would be, but I would assume next week. We shall see.

Our next match was between Keith Lee and Nykos Rikos. That is an interesting name. This match did not last long. Nykos tried to chop Lee to no avail. Lee hit the Pounce and The Limit Breaker to seal an easy victory.

Lee needs a good feud. It is still amazing seeing a guy his size be so light on his feet. I love seeing a big man who can move and bring more than just power and strength to the table.

There was a lot of video packages this week. The final one was for Adam Cole. It was showcasing the Adam Cole Championship Celebration Tour. It showed various highlights of him going around with the title, as well as competing in the ring.

It ended with him delivering a package to a small restaurant named Gargano’s. This must mean Johnny Gargano is coming back soon to get his rematch for the title, possibly at the next Takeover event.

Two matches were announced for next week, Roderick Strong vs. Tyler Breeze and the second match in the NXT Breakout Tournament, Isaiah “Swerve” Scott vs. Cameron Grimes (formally Trevor Lee in Impact Wrestling). Both of those should be good matches.

Our main event is a steel cage match (a first for the women in NXT) for the NXT Women’s Title between Shayna Baszler and Io Shirai. This was a very good match. Shayna was dominant early on. Taking a page from her MMA background to start the match, Shayna throws Shirai into the cage face first then again with her hitting the cage back first.

Shirai comes back with a series of dropkicks to Shayna right into the cage. Another good spot was a German Suplex from the second turnbuckle executed by Shirai. Everything goes crazy once Jessamyn Duke & Marina Shafir get involved to help Shayna. Candice LaRae comes out as well to help Shirai. She performs a dive off the cage to shield off Jessamyn. Shirai hits a perfect moonsault off the top of the cage. It was really a thing of beauty.

The match ends with both Shayna and Shirai trying to escape through the door. Shayna’s got the choke hold on Shirai, who ends up using the door to her advantage. It ends up costing her because the last time it hit Shayna, she falls out of the ring to retain her title. It was a crazy way to end such a good match, but these ladies gave it there all.

The shocker of the night was Shirai attacking Candice after the match. She totally snapped. She looked like she was showing some remorse. She ends up getting a chair to do more damage to LeRae. I did not see that coming at all. It was a total heel turn for Shirai. This feud with Shayna has sent her off the deep end. This now sets up a Candice vs. Shirai feud. That should be good.

That wraps up another week of NXT. This was a very good show. A lot happened in that one hour time period. I cannot wait to see what happens next.

I will see you all back here next week for some more NXT chat. NXT is the place to be for WWE right now. Be sure to catch them each week on the WWE Network. You will not be disappointed.