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UnWrest (NXT Review, 11/7/18)- The Road to War

Why Johnny Why? Well, we found out this week along with the continued build to several promising matches at NXT TakeOver WarGames.

Without further ado, let's do this.



NXT 11/7/18

- Heavy Machinery takes on The Forgotten Sons' Cutler and Blake in the opening contest of the show. Good match to start off here with the smaller Forgotten Sons having to use their aggression and tenacity to keep Dozovic down. Knight gets tagged in and nails a nice Cannonball off the top rope. The Sons isolate and beat down on Knight. The Sons hit a PowerPlex combination. Dozovic breaks up the pin attempt though.  Some really good back and forth action here towards the end where either team looked to be moving towards the victory. Heavy Machinery winning was somewhat surprising to me as The Forgotten Sons had been getting built up only a few weeks ago. A very solid way to kick off the show.

-Candace LaRae demands a match with Nikki Cross after she laughed in LaRae's face when confronted about Johnny Gargano. To be fair, Nikki laughs in everyone's face. So, that's nothing really nasty.

- William Regal tells Shayna Baszler that the rematch between Sane and Baszler will take place at WarGames in a 2 out of 3 Falls match. God, I can't wait to see that match.

- Dakota Kai takes on Taynara Conti in our second match. A good match here as Taynara spends a good bit of the match working on the arm of Kai. Kai continues to sell the arm throughout her comeback sequence, which is a nice bit of storytelling on her end. I hate it when wrestlers don't sell an injury during a match when they should be. Kai wins after a Code Red into a Backstabber. Kai is still someone I'm waiting to see do more in NXT. She just seems to be on the roster. And that's it.

- Mia Yim is backstage. Bianca Belair interrupts the interview and bumps into Mia Yim. She tells the interviewer that she should be interviewed. After all, she is un-de-feat-ed. Yim tells her off, and Belair just walks off.

- Kassius Ohno welcomes Matt Riddle and Keith Lee to NXT. The shiny new toys are easy to break according to Ohno.

- After a WarGames promo, we get Johnny Gargano's promo explaining why he attacked Aleister Black.
He explains that he needed to do what he did to get Black out of the way of his revenge against Ciampa. It was nothing personal. He feels bad for Black who doesn't know what evil is. Gargano said he learned that he needed to fight dirty in order to get his revenge. He tells Black that he understands if he needs to kick his face off. But Gargano is not afraid of where he's at or of the darkness. He actually likes it. He's right at where he left Black laying. He's going to leave him laying again at NXT Takeover.

A really solid promo by Johnny Gargano with some logical reasoning behind why he decided to injure Aleister Black. It was cold, calculated, and thought out. And the promo explaining his actions was the best promo that I've seen Gargano cut period. And I like this Johnny Gargano 100x more than the "Oh woe is me" Johnny Gargano most people fawned over in 2018.

- The main event is Velveteen Dream vs. Lars Sullivan. Lars Sullivan is one of those guys who may never win a championship in NXT but find himself a main eventer on the main roster. I can see Vince McMahon going "DAMN, PAL! (in Vince McMahon exaggeration) Laaaaars is moneyyyyyyyyy!" Lars just completely decimated Velveteen Dream early on, throwing him all over the ring and putting holds on him. Dream gets some offense in, but Sullivan just plants him with a big powerslam. Sullivan misses a diving headbutt off the corner. Ring post, Sullivan's shoulder. Sullivan's shoulder, ring post. Ciampa comes out to distract Dream, which leads to the Freak Accident by Lars Sullivan for the win. Decent match, but Lars is still missing a couple things in my opinion that would take him to the next level. I hope Vince doesn't call up Dream or Sullivan too soon as I don't think either are truly ready for the main roster quite yet.

Afrer the match, Ciampa starts attacking Velveteen Dream. Ciampa belittles Dream with some insults. Ciampa lays the belt in the ring. Dream superkicks Ciampa  and nails a TWISTING DDT ONTO THE TITLE! He climbs to the top, but the referees stop him from diving off onto Ciampa. Dream fights off the referees, and he nails the Flying Elbow off the top rope. Velveteen grabs the title, which spells doom for his world championship prospects. (This hardly ever pans out well for the face to hold the world championship the week or so before a title match.)

Overall, this was a decent episode of NXT if a bit underwhelming compared to weeks past. The main event really didn't do much for me, but I'm somewhat cold on Sullivan right now. They need to do more to build his character besides being just a bland monster. Otherwise, I see him kicking plastic baby dolls and playing with feet on the main roster. The opening tag match was probably the best of the night, but that's not exactly saying much. This was more about building up to War Games, and there's nothing wrong with that.
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Hope you enjoyed this week's edition of UnWrest NXT Review. Until next time, take care of yourselves. Spread some awesomeness.

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