NXT – August 17, 2016: This Is What They Do

NXT
Date: August 17, 2016
Location: Full Sail University, Winter Park, Florida
Commentators: Tom Phillips, Corey Graves

It’s the go home show for Takeover: Back to Brooklyn and that means it’s time for the big hard push towards New York. Odds are we’ll be getting the big showdown between Samoa Joe and Shinsuke Nakamura, possibly with Nakamura getting taken down as payback for embarrassing Joe last week. Let’s get to it.

Opening sequence.

Hideo Itami vs. Mustafa Ali

Ali is from the Cruiserweight Classic. Itami starts fast with the strikes and sends him to the apron for a baseball slide. Back in and Ali takes him down for a chinlock followed by a kick to the head for two. Itami is tired of playing around though and starts firing off the strikes, capped off by the running knee for the pin at 3:20.

Rating: C. The silent assassin could work for Itami as it’s better than watching him just not have much charisma. I do like the idea of bringing in the cruiserweights as NXT isn’t going to treat them as worthless jobbers. Ali certainly wasn’t squashed here and that makes all the difference in the world.

Video on Bobby Roode. Any excuse to hear GLORIOUS is worth it.

Video on Asuka vs. Bayley, which makes it feel like the ultimate rematch and challenge for Bayley after she was destroyed in Dallas. Asuka has gotten even more aggressive since winning the title and Bayley could be in way over her head on this one. Bayley said the underdog has become the champion before and she’s going to do it again.

Music video with footage of Aries vs. No Way Jose, Roode vs. Almas and the Tag Team Title match.

William Regal is talking about how awesome Takeover is going to be when Billie Kay comes in and asks why she’s not on the card. Regal agrees and gives her a match with newcomer Ember Moon. Simple and effective again.

Carmella/Liv Morgan/Nikki Glenncross vs. Alexa Bliss/Mandy Rose/Daria Berenato

Rose is from Tough Enough, Glenncross is from Scotland and Berenato is from New Jersey. You can tell Rose is glorified eye candy in the vein of the early days of Eva Marie. Graves: “Mandy Rose is only second to one person in my heart: Eva Marie.” Berenato (a newcomer just like Glenncross) is dressed like a boxer. Ten seconds in and Graves is reaching Jerry Lawler levels of drooling over the women.

Bliss and Nikki start things off with a quick cross body putting Alexa down. The villains take a break on the floor and it’s off to Daria, who immediately takes her gloves off as we go to an early break. Back with Daria fighting out of Liv’s chinlock before Bliss offers a distraction so the bad women can take over.

We hear about Daria’s MMA training before it’s off to Mandy with Graves losing his mind in the vein of Cole freaking out over Miz. A running knee puts Liv down before Daria comes back in for a kick to the chest. We hit the chinlock with a body vice and Daria even adds some trash talk. You don’t see that enough.

Morgan enziguris Alexa down and the hot tag brings in Carmella to clean house. Carmella speeds things up with clotheslines and a hurricanrana to take Rose down for two. Everything breaks down and Mandy’s rollup is countered into the Cone of Silence for the tap out at 11:35.

Rating: C+. This was a very nice surprise and a good hope for the future of the women’s division. Rose is already a mile ahead of Eva Marie in the ring as she looked competent and comfortable with the basic things she was doing. Glenncross didn’t get to show off all that much but Daria had a unique enough character to stand out immediately. Carmella and Bliss definitely looked ahead of the others and I’m sure they’ll be fine on the main rosters with a little more time.

Regal tells security to keep Joe and Nakamura apart during their interview.

Ember Moon is coming.

We run down the card. I miss that happening on the main shows.

It’s time for the sitdown interview with Joe and Nakamura. Both of them say they’re excited to start before Joe says he doesn’t like the lack of respect. Joe had to go through the entire roster for months to get a title shot but Nakamura beats Balor once and gets his shot. Bayley only had to ask for a rematch and Regal checked with Asuka to make sure it was ok. Nakamura says he’s a calm man by definition, especially outside of the ring.

Joe says Nakamura came to his dojo for training earlier in his career. Nakamura doesn’t remember it being Joe’s dojo and smiles a lot. Joe respects what Nakamura has done but maybe not Shinsuke himself. In answer to the same question, Nakamura leans forward and smiles a lot which gets Joe out of his chair. Regal has security break it up.

One last Takeover ad ends the show.

Overall Rating: B. This show had one goal and that was to make me care about Takeover more than I did coming in. They more than accomplished that task so anything else they do is a bonus. The wrestling was really an afterthought at this point and the fact that the women’s tag worked as well as it did is a bonus. It’s a really fast show and they covered all of Saturday’s matches, albeit some a bit faster than others. Joe vs. Nakamura has the potential to be an absolute war and I’m looking forward to seeing it. Well done all around here and a great go home show.

Results

Hideo Itami b. Mustafa Ali – Running knee

Carmella/Nikki Glenncross/Liv Morgan b. Daria Berenato/Alexa Bliss/Mandy Rose – Cone of Silence to Rose

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