NXT – April 6, 2016: A Rare Disappointment
NXT
Date: April 6, 2016
Location: Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, Dallas, Texas
Commentators: Corey Graves, Tom Phillips
This is the first of a series of special shows from Wrestlemania weekend with most of the matches taped from Axxess weekend. It should be interesting to see how things go with a very different style audience. Also it’s not clear whether or not we’ll get much advancement in the major angles as everything needs to reset after Takeover: Dallas. Let’s get to it.
We open with a recap of Takeover as you might guess.
Phillips and Graves welcome us, clearly from Takeover.
New correspondent Catherine Kelly tells us what we can expect, including Apollo Crews vs. Elias Samson, which was a dark match at Takeover.
We see a video on American Alpha winning the Tag Team Titles, followed by Jordan (nearly in tears) and Gable talking about what it means to win the titles on the biggest weekend of the year.
Video on Asuka winning the Women’s Title from Bayley.
Bayley says congratulations to Asuka and admits that Asuka is just on another level. A champion is made by how many times they get back up and get better so she’ll rise to the occasion again.
We recap Elias Samson getting pinned by Johnny Gargano a few weeks back. Post match Samson beat him down until Apollo Crews made the save.
Recap video of Aries vs. Corbin.
Aries calls himself the most polarizing man in wrestling and that’s just fine. He’s not out there to prove anything to the people though because he’s out there to prove something to himself. Talent and passion can’t be measured with a ruler and a scale but he proved everything he needed to prove to Baron Corbin and isn’t going anywhere soon.
We see Finn Balor retaining the NXT Title over Samoa Joe.
Balor says he escaped and survived Joe again.
Joe has nothing to say.
We see Samson singing a song to Crews but backing away from a fight.
No Way Jose is coming.
Elias Samson vs. Apollo Crews
Samson comes out with his guitar and has something to say but we have a lot of booing to get through first. The fans say that they want wrestling but thankfully Crews cuts it off to get things going. Crews throws him into the corner to start so Samson hides behind the guitar. A headlock doesn’t get Elias anywhere and it’s an armbar to put him on the mat. The armbar even goes to the floor so they head back inside for yet another armbar.
Back from a break with Samson getting in a shot to the back of the head and putting on a chinlock. Another chinlock doesn’t go anywhere and it’s Crews getting up and hammering away to a surprisingly strong reaction. Samson bails to the floor and gets taken down with an apron moonsault, only to have the standing version hit knees back inside. Elias gets in a jumping knee to the head but asks for silence, allowing Apollo to kick him in the face. The toss powerbomb puts Samson away at 14:46.
Rating: D. This really wasn’t very good and that’s probably it for Samson for a little while. Crews moving to Raw is still a surprise but at least he went out on a win unlike Corbin. Unfortunately it wasn’t a good match as most of it was spent on armbars and chinlocks. Samson is much more of a character than a wrestler but I’m not sure how far he can get on that alone.
Video on Zayn vs. Nakamura.
Sami can’t put all of his emotions into words.
Nakamura says strong style has arrived.
Overall Rating: D+. This is a tricky one as the show should have been white hot coming off Wrestlemania weekend and the awesome Takeover but instead it’s a recap and dark match. Maybe you can argue that this is a breather from all the action and a fear of burnout but I was looking forward to something entertaining here and wound up seeing a bunch of stuff all over again. It’s not often that I get to say this but I was disappointed here.
Results
Apollo Crews b. Elias Samson – Toss powerbomb
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