WWE presents NXT Takeover: 31 tonight live on the WWE Network.
WWE has announced Takeover will take place from a completely redesigned Performance Center, which they\’ve dubbed the Capitol Wrestling Center. There will be a limited number of fans in attendance.
Takeover 31 marks the fourth special for the yellow brand in 2020. The top advertised match will see NXT Champion Finn Balor defend against Kyle O’Reilly of the Undisputed Era. There are a total of five matches booked for this show, with four of them being championship matches.
As a reminder, we will be providing coverage of this special on Sunday evening.
It’s been well documented that WWE and AEW compete against each other in the Wednesday Night War, but now they might be competing for the services of a rising independent wrestler.
Ben Carter has drawn the interest of multiple companies including WWE and AEW. Per the report, there was at least contact with NXT, but there’s no word yet on how serious those discussions were or how far the conversations got.
AEW may have a slight advantage in signing him to a full-time deal as he’s worked for the promotion in the past.
He made his AEW debut when he worked a match against Ricky Starks on Dark. Two of his matches aired last month that saw him lose to Scorpio Sky on Late Night Dynamite, but scored a win over Lee Johnson on Dark.
Carter was trained at Seth Rollins and Marek Brave\’s wrestling school before breaking into the pro wrestling business.
The final betting odds have been released for the WWE NXT TakeOver 31 event from Orlando, Florida at the Performance Center.
The card for the show that takes place this Sunday appears to be finalized as only 5 matches have been announced. It\’s possible that a sixth match is added whether that be on the main card or pre-show.
Some of the more notable odds include the main event between WWE NXT Champion Finn Balor and Kyle O’Reilly as Balor is listed as a clear favorite over the underdog.
There are no titles expected to change, according to the odds. It should be noted that odds are not out yet for WWE NXT Cruiserweight Champion Santos Escobar vs. Isaiah “Swerve” Scott.
WWE NXT TakeOver 31 Odds
As a reminder, we will be providing coverage of the show this Sunday. The favorites to win are listed as – while the underdogs are listed with +. Here are the final betting odds:
WWE NXT Champion Finn Balor (1/7) vs. Kyle O’Reilly (4/1)
WWE NXT Women’s Champion Io Shirai (4/9) vs. Candice LeRae (13/8)
WWE NXT North American Champion Damian Priest (1/2) vs. Johnny Gargano (6/4)
News broke late Thursday night that WWE would not be airing the NXT TakeOver 31 show from Full Sail University. Instead, the show will be moving to the Performance Center.
It was also reported how the NXT TV show would also take place from the training facility. Pwinsider.com reported today that starting this coming Wednesday, the TV shows will no longer be taped in advance, but rather air live every week going forward.
Regarding NXT TakeOver 31, Wrestling Inc reports that there are several reasons as to why WWE amicably left Full Sail University.
It was noted that the main reason is due to the students as before the pandemic, they have used students in various capacities from camera personnel and production assistants. Since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, that hasn’t been the case due to NXT being a closed set with WWE personnel only. There are also no plans to use students as fans as Full Sail won\’t allow fans to attend live shows on campus.
Finally, with the recent outbreaks in NXT and the university partially re-opened to in-student learning, NXT uses some of the conference rooms in the building across that students use when WWE isn’t taping NXT.
With WWE setting up another training facility and the reasons mentioned above, the feeling of keeping everyone close and them being the only ones using the facilities played a factor.
Paige has gained quite the following on the Twitch platform and based on her recent comments, it’s something that is special to her.
The former WWE Divas Champion built up the following after she retired from being an in-ring performer and not currently being used on WWE television.
She took to Twitter on Friday afternoon to comment on what she has built on the platform. Many people thought this statement might be a reference to WWE\’s new edict on third party activity. She wrote the following:
\”Twitch is MY place what I built with my wonderful fans. A place where people can go and feel some positivity and little bit of normalcy. Fun. Interactive. Non judgemental. Charitable place. I\’m proud of what I built with my fan base.”
Of course, Vince McMahon sent out a reminder to wrestlers this week about how they had until October 2nd to cease all unauthorized third party activity.
This is where McMahon told that repeated violations may result in potential fines, suspensions, or terminations. It has since been reported that the company plans to take over the Twitch accounts created by talents in four weeks as they will own those accounts.
The problem that wrestlers have with this is that while they will receive a percentage of the revenue, it will count against the pay from their downside guarantees.
NXT Women\’s Champion Io Shirai and NXT North American Champion Damian Priest vs. Candice LeRae and Johnny Gargano took place.
Of course, Shirai will defend the Women’s Title against LeRae while Priest will defend the North American Title against Gargano at this Sunday’s TakeOver show. Thus, this was a preview for those matches.
They ended up saving this contest for the main event of the show. The stars had a decent amount of time to work.
The finish saw LeRae hit Priest with a low blow that the referee didn’t see, which led to Io chasing after LeRae and Gargano hitting his finisher to Priest for the win. LeRae hit Io with a back breaker after the match. The heels closed the show by standing tall over the two champions.
Shotzi Blackheart vs. Dakota Kai is in the books in what marked the latest match for Blackheart, who has been a big star in the women’s division as of late.
Once moving away from a feud with the Robert Stone brand, she hasn’t been winning all of her matches, but has been positioned as a star on the rise and sharing the ring with notable names and in big time matches.
This was actually the opening match, which was fine as there is no storyline connected to it. There was some outside interference by Raquel Gonzalez and Rhea Ripley. This caused Blackheart to roll her up for the win.
Shawn Michaels hosted a face-to-face meeting between NXT Champion Finn Balor and Kyle O’Reilly just days before they meet in a championship match at NXT TakeOver.
O’Reilly won a Gauntlet Eliminator Match last week to earn this title opportunity. Not only did this segment fill time, build on the main event of TakeOver, and get O’Reilly over more a challenger, it will also help NXT’s viewership with an appearance by the WWE Hall of Famer.
The three stars sat in chairs with a makeshift table. Balor put over O’Reilly for being a great wrestler. Michaels called O’Reilly one of the best-kept secrets in wrestling. O’Reilly stated that Balor is a fighting champion, but stated that this is a certain defeat for Balor.
Balor questioned if O’Reilly was going to show up by himself or with Undisputed Era. O’Reilly said that the group being together is how they’ve achieved success, but stated that he’ll show up alone. Balor said there will be no room for excuses when he beats him at TakeOver.
Adam Cole came out for a promo where he talked about for the last three years. The Undisputed Era has won all of the titles in NXT and they dominated NXT.
He stated that everyone knew in the locker room that no one should cross them. He stated that they have since lost all of the titles.
He said that people forgot to check themselves when they get in the group’s way. He reminded people of their accomplishments. He recalled Austin Theory for talking trash about Kyle O’Reilly earlier in the show.
He called out Theory, who came out to the ring. Cole said that Theory can bring his stupid face to the ring and fight him or he can stay where he’s at and they can beat him down.
Thus, a singles match broke out. It was a lengthy back and forth affair with Cole winning after hitting the Last Shot.
AEW has announced plans to hold a tournament and some early details have been shared heading into Full Gear.
The news was made in a segment on Wednesday’s episode of Dynamite on TNT. There will be an eight-man tournament taking place over the next few weeks with the finals taking place at AEW Full Gear.
The purpose of this tournament is to crown a new number 1 contender for the AEW World Championship. Jungle Boy, Rey Fenix, and Kenny Omega were the first names announced for the tournament.
AEW had Adam Page, who was on commentary, choke on his beer when he heard the news. More details on the tournament will be announced soon including the rest of the competitors in the tournament.
BREAKING NEWS It's a huge 8-man tournament, single-elimination, the finals will be at Full Gear where the winner will receive a shot at the #AEW World Championship. 1?? @boy_myth_legend 2?? @ReyFenixMx 3?? @KennyOmegamanX
The AEW All Out pay-per-view event will take place on Saturday, November 7th, 2020 in Jacksonville, Florida at Daily’s Place. This will be the final PPV event of the year for AEW.
The show will air on B/R Live, which is Bleacher Report’s streaming service, traditional PPV outlets, and FITE TV in international markets.
All Elite Wrestling will be announcing more matches in the coming weeks including who will challenge AEW World Heavyweight Champion Jon Moxley for the title.
Last year’s show was right in line with other AEW pay-per-view events as it did around 100,000 buys.
Batista’s return to WWE in 2014 could’ve been different in one aspect if WWE actually signed off on an interesting idea.
It turns out that the former WWE World Heavyweight Champion wanted to update his theme music. For several years during his career, he used Saliva’s “I Stand Alone.”
The change to the music in 2014 would’ve seen some input by the Wu-Tang Clan as RZA planned to add some lyrics to his theme music.
In fact, RZA was willing to do it for free. However, as Batista tells it, WWE decided against it. As result, it only furthered frustrated him.
“Here’s some cool background shit for ya! My homie @rza from @WuTangClan was going to add some lyrics to my music to give it an updated feel when I went back in 2014… FOR FREE!!!! And the @WWE said NO. Just another one of my frustrations of the 2014 shit show if a return.”
Batista made his return before the 2014 Royal Rumble event where he won the rumble match and eventually lost to Daniel Bryan for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in a triple threat match that also featured Randy Orton.
He stayed around for a few more months before deciding to leave again to further pursue his acting career.
CM Punk, who is friends with Batista, gave his reaction, as seen below:
Triple H gave some interesting answers on two topics during a media call to promote this Sunday’s NXT TakeOver: XXX event.
First up was the possibility of NXT moving off Wednesday to a different date. NXT recently aired on Tuesday for two weeks due to the NHL Playoffs on USA Network. It had some of the best viewership numbers for the year as it didn’t go head-to-head with AEW Dynamite.
According to Triple H, he’s happy with the day of the week that the show airs.
\”There are conversations around all of our products at all times, the best place for it to sit, the best place for it to work, all of that. Funny, I don\’t hear anybody else asking about people moving on Wednesday since we were always on Wednesdays. It comes down to a question of where the show best sits, not only for us, but our partners and wherever they want to go. We\’re open to doing the best business we can, but it\’s not as simple as it\’s our decision and we just put the show where we want.”
Triple H continued by stating that those decisions are made by partners, but did note that people tend to believe what they want to believe. However, he’s not concerned about it. He said that they try to put on the best show possible and thinks they have the best wrestlers in the world.
“As far as where it sits, those are business questions that come down to WWE and our partners.\”
Up next was about how the upcoming draft with RAW and SmackDown will impact NXT.
According to Triple H, he doesn’t know whether NXT will be part of it, but rather is waiting to see the excitement unfold.
Monday’s edition of WWE RAW averaged 1.822 million viewers with a 0.54 rating in the key 18-49 demographic. This was up from last week, which did 1.667 million viewers, but up from the 0.49 demo rating.
Heading into the night, many thought that this show could set its record low, which was previously set with 1.561 million viewers in July.
WWE had to deal with one NFL game that aired on ESPN, which was a major game between the Ravens and Chiefs that did 14 million viewers. This was the post-Clash of Champions episode of RAW.
To compare, just one year ago, RAW averaged 2.570 million viewers. Here’s the hourly viewership breakdown for Raw, courtesy of Showbuzzdaily.com:
Hour 1: 1.956 million, 0.58 in the 18-49 Demo
Hour 2: 1.824 million, 0.54 in the 18-49 Demo
Hour 3: 1.687 million, 0.52 in the 18-49 Demo
SmackDown Viewership
Friday’s SmackDown averaged 2.110 million viewers on FOX. This is up from the 2.037 million viewers that the show did for the previous week.
SmackDown averaged 2.032 million viewers in the fast nationals, which was up from the 1.954 million viewers a week ago. This number measured the top metered markets.
The first hour drew 2.050 million viewers while the second hour did 2.014 million viewers. For comparison, the first show of last week’s show did 1.922 million viewers while the second hour did 1.986 million viewers.
SmackDown pulled in a 0.60 rating in the 18-49 demos, up from the 0.50 rating as last week’s show.
Bobby Roode has made his return to WWE television.
He did so on Monday’s episode of RAW from Orlando, Florida at the Amway Center on the USA Network when he answered an open challenge for the WWE Title that was issued by Drew McIntyre in the opening segment of the show.
McIntyre did a promo with Shawn Michaels, Ric Flair, Big Show, and Christian standing behind him about how he needed to take on someone who he hadn’t faced while champion as he considers himself a fighting champion.
The open challenge took place in the final segment of the show.
Roode had been on hiatus from WWE due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He lives in Canada and for the past several months, the borders between Canada and the United States have been closed. As a result, that had prevented him from entering the country.
Just last week it was reported that Roode was expected to make his return to Monday Night Raw in the near future.
He was last seen in action in March as he teamed up with Dolph Ziggler to compete in the Elimination Chamber Match for the WWE SmackDown Tag Team Championships.
James Storm has stated that he was supposed to make his WWE main roster debut with the company after WrestleMania 36. Obviously, that didn’t happen.
Storm told Pro Wrestling Sheet that he was first approached by WWE during Royal Rumble weekend. Dave Lagana and Billy Corgan even allowed Storm to be let out of his NWA contract early.
“I get home and I see I got an email from Canyon Ceman saying, ‘Hey, we’re interested. Paul Heyman wants me to reach out and bring you to Raw,” Storm said. “I was like, ‘Wait … I think Bobby is going to Raw. Hmmm. This could be interesting.’ Ya know?”
“I told them I would work the weekend of WrestleMania shows with Eli [Drake] to drop the NWA belts to whoever they wanted to drop it to,” Storm told Satin. “Just go out on good terms. Good business, ya know? Then that show got cancelled for the NWA, and then it kept snowballing.”
After WrestleMania, he was preparing to make his WWE debut and for WWE’s pre-signing physical and bought new gear.
The deal had been done, and he had signed. However, he was told by management that things were being put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Storm debuted in NXT during the October 2015 tapings and later appeared on a December episode before deciding against signing with WWE NXT to instead return to Impact Wrestling.
The core members of Retribution (T-BAR, Mace, Slapjack, Reckoning, and Retaliation) have reportedly tested negative for COVID-19, according to Ryan Satin of Pro Wrestling Sheet.
The original belief from Dave Meltzer during Sunday Night\’s Main Event podcast was that they were kept off Sunday’s WWE Clash of Champions pay-per-view because they are not currently medically cleared to compete.
At the time, there wasn’t any word whether it was COVID-19 related. That has changed.
Per Satin, each member has to quarantine themselves for two weeks due to precautionary reasons as they came into proximity with someone else who tested positive for COVID-19.
As of this writing, here\’s no word yet on when Retribution began their two-week quarantine. They were last seen on WWE television on last Monday’s episode of RAW.
Satin wrote, “Regarding RETRIBUTION not being cleared to compete at the moment, sources tell me all 5 members tested negative for COVID-19. However, the group\’s members each have to quarantine themselves for two weeks because they came into proximity with someone who tested positive.”
It appears that they will stay off television until mid-October. It will be interesting to see how WWE plans to explain their absence or if WWE will just use other wrestlers to fill in for the normal characters.
The Rock gave his thoughts publicly known about the main event of Sunday’s Clash of Champions pay-per-view event featuring Roman Reigns.
This event, which aired live on the WWE Network from the ThunderDome, featured Reigns successfully retaining the WWE Universal Title over Jey Uso. While Jey did have some moments of offense, but it was mostly a one-sided beatdown by the champion.
The finish of the match saw Reigns beating down Jey while demanding that his cousin called him the tribal chief. Eventually, Jimmy Uso walked out to the ring and threw in the towel to stop the attack.
Reigns took to Instagram after the contest and just simply wrote “Levels.” The Rock took to the comments section and responded with the following:
\”Same game, different levels. Same hell, different devils. Heard you two tore the house down [fist emoji]\”
The former WWE Champion recently came out and stated that if he were to come out of retirement for one more match then he would want it to be against Reigns, who is WWE’s biggest star right now, at a WrestleMania event.
The Rock has been retired for a few years now, but anything can happen in pro wrestling.
In what was a family feud, Roman Reigns is still standing tall as the Universal Champion.
Jey Uso, the cousin of “The Big Dog, was the first challenger in the current reign of Reigns as Universal Champion. This title match was the main event featured on the card for this year’s WWE Clash of Champions pay-per-view event.
As promised, Reigns wrestled shirtless for those who care to know. Although Uso was positioned as someone who had brief moments of offense and they even did near falls, it was Reigns who took down his family member.
After Reigns mauled him because Jey wouldn’t call him the Tribal Chief, Jimmy walked out to the ring and wanted to throw in the towel and did despite his brother telling him not to do so.
Jey earned this title opportunity when WWE held a Fatal 4-Way Match with him vs. Matt Riddle vs. King Baron Corbin vs. Sheamus. This contest took place on the September 4th episode of Friday Night SmackDown on FOX.
Jey actually replaced Big E in the contest as Sheamus attacked him before the match. WWE did an injury angle with Big E and played it up as Paul Heyman had gotten Jey into the match.
The rematch between Drew McIntyre and Randy Orton was a memorable Ambulance Match.
McIntyre put the WWE Title on the line against the longtime WWE star in the co-main event of the WWE Clash of Champions pay-per-view event.
The match featured the return of The Big Show, but it was at the beginning of the contest. Big Show came out while wearing a mask and hit a chokeslam to Orton through the announce table before leaving. A notable spot was when McIntyre went for the Claymore Kick, but Orton moved and kicked the door off.
While backstage, Christain attacked Orton and then left. Moving along, Shawn Michaels appeared to hit Sweet Chin Music to Orton off the top of the ambulance. As a result, it sent him through a crash pad. Orton had previously attacked all three guys and it wrote them off TV at the time.
The finish saw McIntyre connected with a Claymore Kick and the Punt Kick. Ric Flair drove the ambulance out of the arena.
Andrade and Angel Garza didn’t make it to the top of the tag team division on Monday Night RAW, but there’s more concerning news.
Andrade and Garza failed to gain the titles when they challenged The Street Profits at the WWE Clash of Champions pay-per-view event. This is where Montez Ford and Angelo Dawkins retained the titles in Orlando, Florida.
As seen in the contest, it appeared that Garza suffered some sort of injury as the finish was odd. Dawkins hit a spinebuster to Andrade but he had his shoulder up and the announcers were confused at the pinfall. The referee threw up the X sign and doctors later checked on Garza.
After the match, Pwinsider.com reported that Garza 100% suffered a legitimate injury to his leg and that he was being checked on by the trainers backstage. Bryan Alvarez also threw out this speculation:
Garza appears to have some sort of leg injury, perhaps to his quad.
WWE set up this contest last week on RAW when a Triple Threat Tag Team Match to determine the new challengers for the titles was booked. Garza and Andrade beat Seth Rollins & Murphy and Dominik Mysterio & Humberto Carrillo
The rosters of Raw and SmackDown will be shaken up once again. WWE has announced a 2-night Draft is taking place next month.
The 2020 WWE Draft will kick off on October 9th on Friday Night SmackDown and resume on the October 12th episode of Monday Night RAW.
Fightful was the first to report of a forthcoming WWE Draft. The news was later confirmed by the Wrestling Observer. There was a plan to do it in early August because WWE officials felt a change was needed because of declining ratings, but there was a problem that would’ve impacted bigger plans as it would mess up plans for SummerSlam.
WWE then planned to do it in late August after SummerSlam. Once again, that got nixed once WWE planned to do a second pay-per-view a week, which was Payback.
2019 WWE Draft
Last year’s Draft also took place in October last year. For those who are curious, here were the results of the first two rounds of the Draft last year:
The battle to find out the true WWE Intercontinental Champion was an impressive spectacle, but it was Sami Zayn who pulled off the win.
WWE Intercontinental Champion Jeff Hardy vs. AJ Styles vs. Zayn in a Ladder Match took place at the WWE Clash of Champions pay-per-view event.
On paper, fans had high expectations for this contest, and based on feedback on social media, it appears those expectations were met.
Some notable spots included Styles sending Zayn bouncing off a ladder in the corner. Zayn was climbing the ladder, but Styles threw a small ladder at him. Hardy hit a Swanton Bomb off a ladder to Zayn through another ladder. Near the end of the match, Zayn put a handcuff through the earlobe of Hardy and attached it to a ladder. Zayn then handcuffed Styles to a different ladder before getting the titles.
Zayn decided to pull himself from television due to concerns about COVID-19 and WWE later stripped him of the championship and set up a tournament to crown a new champion.
Styles, Daniel Bryan, Drew Gulak, Elias, Hardy, King Corbin, Sheamus, and Shinsuke Nakamura were confirmed as competitors. Eventually, Styles won the tournament finals and became the champion only to drop it to Hardy.
When Zayn returned to TV on the August 28th episode of SmackDown, WWE played it up as Zayn being the real champion.
Ryback decided to go on social media and give his true feelings about Triple H and Vince McMahon.
The former WWE star made it clear in his various responses to fans that he is a fan of pro wrestling, but isn’t fond of WWE. Coming from someone who actually worked at the company, he would know how things work behind the scenes.
At one point, he went after the WWE Chairman and CEO. In fact, he thinks the world, not just the pro wrestling business, will be a better place when McMahon passes away. He did note that this opinion isn’t him having a death wish for McMahon.
“It was ALWAYS the talent. He just created a platform as a human circus that he modified from his father. The guy is a piece of shit, can’t stress this enough. World will be a better place when he passes. This isn’t wishing death, but stating an opinion I believe to be true.”
Ryback also went after Triple H, who currently oversees NXT, as “The Game” is likely the person to take over the company when McMahon does pass away.
“Pussy Paul is not the savior to anything. He will go down with the ship.”
Ryback had a successful run in the WWE that ended once he decided to depart from the company in 2016. He has since focused on his podcast and YouTube channel. You can see his tweets here:
I love wrestling, just don’t care for WWE. Fans need to stop putting the brand above the performers. You’ve all been brainwashed to think Vince is some sort of genius. The guy is as corrupt as a lot of other greedy businesses profiting for bad and need to wake the fuck up. https://t.co/1Vi3NwpsRI
Changing the business model entirely to create the biggest stars on the planet and profit off that rather than running a business that is trying to make the logo the main star for maximum profits. The fans and all involved will win and they would actually increase profits https://t.co/TCZuMkNPyz
100% it will be added into everything I’m doing. I feel better than I have in a long time. A little more work to do and I am not doing anything until full crowds are back. I would never throw away what I’ve gone through to silence. I’m an energy based wrestler and need energy. https://t.co/iEBMTW9SoX
The card for Sunday\’s (September 27, 2020) WWE Clash of Champions pay-per-view event has been finalized.
The company hasn’t officially announced the main event of this event that takes place in Orlando, Florida at the Amway Center that will air on the WWE Network but it will most likely be WWE Champion Drew McIntyre vs. Randy Orton in an Ambulance Match.
As a reminder, we will be providing live play-by-play coverage of this special on Sunday evening starting at 6 PM EST. Here is the final card for the show:
Final WWE Clash Of Champions Card
WWE Champion Drew McIntyre vs. Randy Orton – Ambulance Match
WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns vs. Jey Uso
WWE SmackDown Women’s Champion Bayley vs. Nikki Cross
WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler vs. Liv Morgan & Ruby Riot
WWE SmackDown Tag Team Champions Cesaro and Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Lucha House Party
WWE Intercontinental Champion Jeff Hardy vs. AJ Styles vs. Sami Zayn – Ladder Match
WWE RAW Tag Team Champions The Street Profits vs. Andrade and Angel Garza
WWE United States Champion Bobby Lashley vs. Apollo Crews
WWE RAW Women’s Champion Asuka vs. Zelina Vega – Kickoff Show
The final betting odds for all of the matches that will take place at the WWE Clash Of Champions pay-per-view event have been released.
The card for the show that takes place tonight (Sunday, September 27, 2020) from Orlando, Florida at the Amway Center has been finalized as only matches have been announced.
Make sure to join us tonight for match recaps and our takeaways from this latest pay-per-view event held by WWE.
Clash Of Champions Betting Odds
The favorites to win are listed as – while the underdogs are listed with +. Odds call for all three titles to change. Here are the final betting odds courtesy of BetOnline:
WWE Champion Drew McIntyre -120 vs. Randy Orton -120
WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns -3000 vs. Jey Uso +850
WWE SmackDown Women’s Champion Bayley -600 vs. Nikki Cross +350
WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler -250 vs. Liv Morgan & Ruby Riot +170
WWE SmackDown Tag Team Champions Cesaro and Shinsuke Nakamura -300 vs. Lucha House Party +200
WWE Intercontinental Champion Jeff Hardy vs. AJ Styles vs. Sami Zayn – Ladder Match
WWE RAW Tag Team Champions The Street Profits -140 vs. Andrade and Angel Garza -140
WWE United States Champion Bobby Lashley -950 vs. Apollo Crews +500
WWE RAW Women’s Champion Asuka -1250 vs. Zelina Vega +525 – Kickoff Show
There have been some changes made regarding the WWE NXT UK brand.
First up is the brand getting a new head writer. Inside the Ropes first reported that talent was told that Glen Joseph has left NXT UK due to \”personal reasons.” Jim Smallman has been promoted to head writer of NXT UK.
The report stated that Smallman \”still has to answer to Matt Bloom and Shawn Michaels, who are running the brand remotely from the US due to COVID-19 related travel restrictions.\”
Dave Meltzer confirmed the report in the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter as well provided some more details.
Meltzer reports that the change is because there was a feeling at the last tapings the ringwork wasn’t good and a number of matches ended up being re-shot. It was added that some blamed this on stars not having wrestled for months.
Moving along to the planned NXT UK TakeOver: Dublin show that was supposed to take place back in April from the 3Arena in Dublin, Ireland.
Pwinsider.com reports that the show is now scheduled to take place on Sunday, June 20, 2021.
New episodes of the weekly NXT UK television shows started airing on September 17th. Before this, the brand was on hiatus for several months due to the global coronavirus pandemic.
WWE booked a tag team match with a member from four tag teams. It was Roderick Strong representing the Undisputed Era teaming up with Danny Burch taking on Imperium’s Fabian Aichner and Legado Del Fantasma’s Paul Mendoza.
WWE had claimed Fandango came up with the idea for the match. The winners of this match will then face off in another tag team match at a later date for a future shot at the NXT Tag Team Titles.
If there was ever a random tournament type match this would be it. As far as the work inside of the ring, it was fine.
The finish saw Burch hit a cutter to Mendoza off the top rope for the win.
WWE held a #1 contender battle royal to determine who will challenge Io Shirai at TakeOver for the NXT Women’s Title.
Shotzi Blackheart, Kacy Catanzaro, Indi Hartwell, Aliyah, Dakota Kai, Candice LeRae, Rhea Ripley, Tegan Nox, Raquel Gonzalez, Kayden Carter, and Xia Li were the competitors.
This was a typical battle royal that you’ve seen before until the ending when there were four stars being left.
At one point, there was a spot where Catanzaro was sent over the top rope, but jumped onto the barricade and then back to the ring apron. Ripley and Gonzalez were eliminated at the same time when they brawled over the top rope to the floor.
The final two stars were LeRae and Blackheart. The finish saw LeRae toss Blackheart off the steel steps and Blackheart crashed on her back.
I don’t know if it would matter who won this contest. Io is still early in her title reign and there are no many people on the roster who can be a believable threat to Io’s title outside of Ripley.
This upcoming match should be fun even if WWE can’t convince fans in thinking that Io has a real chance of losing the title.
Tommaso Ciampa battled Jake Atlas in a singles match on this show. This comes off Ciampa’s recent in-ring return and heel turn in the process.
It also comes at a time where Atlas made his return just last week. Atlas is still an unproven wrestler who has a bright upside and someone that will be pushed under the WWE banner.
Atlas did get some offense here, but it was exactly what you thought it would be and that is Ciampa being a nasty heel. He hit a middle rope DDT before hitting his finisher for the win.
It still seems as if WWE is building towards something much bigger for Ciampa, but with the next TakeOver event just over a week away, WWE might be saving for whatever they have planned after this show or will need to hot shot the feud quickly.
WWE held a Gauntlet Eliminator Match that would determine the new #1 contender to the NXT Title, which is held by Finn Balor.
Bronson Reed, Timothy Thatcher, Kyle O’Reilly, Kushida, and Cameron Grimes were the competitors in the match. The way the match worked was having two stars start off the contest with a new star being added every four minutes with eliminations being done by pinfall and submission until there was one wrestler left.
This was built as a first-ever match, but the concept of it was something that we’ve seen in the past. Either way, this was a fun yet different way to determine a new title contender.
O’Reilly and Kushida started things off while Reed came out as the third star. Kushida was eliminated when Reed hit him with a big splash off the top rope and next out was Thatcher followed by Grimes.
Reed was next to be eliminated. O’Reilly eliminated Thatcher. The final two stars were Grimes and O’Reilly, which saw O’Reilly lock in a heel hook.
Finn Balor has his next challenger as WWE determined the new #1 contender for the WWE Title that’s held by “The Prince.”
WWE announced heading into Wednesday’sepisode of NXT that the reveal of this contender, which also marks the third match to be added to the card of the NXT TakeOver event on October 4th, would be determined.
WWE held a Gauntlet Eliminator Match, which took place in the final 30 minutes of the show. The rules of this match are as followings:
Two men will start in the ring
Ever 4 minutes, another competitor will enter
The only way to be eliminated is via pinfall or submission
The last man standing is the winner
Bronson Reed, Timothy Thatcher, Kyle O’Reilly, Kushida, and Cameron Grimes worked the bout. Kushida and O’Reilly started things off with Reed coming out as the third star and Thatcher as the fourth. Grimes was the last to enter.
The final two stars were Grimes and O’Reilly battling it out. O’Reilly locked in a heel hook to win the match.
O’Reilly was victorious, which means he earned the right to challenge Balor for the WWE NXT Title. After the match, Balor and O’Reilly had a staredown to close the show.
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