Reviews by Dave
Show air date: November 18, 2020
NXT on USA was one of those shows that’s become typical for Wednesday night rasslin’: the lows were really low but the highs were high enough to overcome them. They gave a lot of time to the middle of the card talent and the Women’s division, continuing a strong week of women’s wrestling on TV (a trend that started Tues, not Monday).
Leon Ruff defeated Johnny Gargano (c) for the NXT North American Championship
Johnny Gargano came up short in his rematch for the North American title against champion Leon Ruff. Gargano looked to be on his way to victory when former champion and Gargano rival Damian Priest came out and punched Ruff in the face, purposely getting the champ disqualified. Entertaining enough. Though it would make more sense that Priest was helping Ruff because he sees him as an easier target, not this buddy-buddy mess he’s been doing.
Ruff later confronts Priest when he overhears him referring to his actions as a “joke”. Priest then lets a man slap slobber out of his mouth and didn’t do shit. Tired WWE tropes make plenty of appearances on this show. This was just the first.
Cameron Grimes vs Dexter Lumis (No contest)
There was a blindfold match with Cameron Grimes and Dexter Lumis. Everyone involved can go straight to he…
Candice LeRae and Indi Hartwell defeated Kacy Catanzaro and Kayden Carter
Candice LaRae and her new bestie Indi Hartwell (who looks a lot taller than I first thought) beat Kacy Catanzaro and Kayden Carter in a good tag match. Catanzaro and Carter are still room temperature bottled water interesting but they’re good wrestlers. Carter should have gotten the Reckoning spot in RETRIBUTION and let Mia Yim be Mia Yim.
KUSHIDA defeated Arturo Ruas
Arturo Ruas pulled himself from the wreckage of Raw Underground to a good match with KUSHIDA. He still lost.
Ember Moon and Toni Storm defeated Dakota Kai and Raquel Gonzalez
After a decent backstage interview, Ember Moon and Toni Storm got a big win over Dakota Kai and Raquel Gonzalez in a very good tag match. Everyone looked really good and it was the most enjoyable match with Gonzalez ever and that was with her getting a lot of in-ring time. She’s coming along quickly. The only knock was the WWE-style goofy-ass finish. Storm. Lady. Ain’t nobody buying Gonzalez threw you that far into the ring post with just her hands. Not with that…low center of gravity. Moon and Storm are then ambushed by LaRae and Hartwell with the commentary team’s desk, who were not well, strongly implying a War Games alliance.
Timothy Thatch defeated August Grey
Timothy “70s Mid Atlantic Wrestling As A Man” Thatcher beat former pupil August Grey in a match that went too long. He’s then confronted by Tommaso Ciampa. That should be good.
Best Week for Leon Ruff
Big brawl with Priest and Gargano that was “okay” at best with Ruff then coming in and getting the advantage on both. Ruff’s best week ever in NXT.
Main Event: Io Shirai (c) defeated Rhea Ripley for the NXT Women’s Championship
Io Shirai successfully defended the NXT Women’s title against Rhea Ripley in the best WWE women’s match of the week and top 2 overall for them. Again with a finish that did too much because I guess it was time for an announcer table spot. Shirai with a moonsault.
The UE Came to Fight!
They close with what was supposed to be an announcement by NXT champion Finn Balor, thankfully interrupted by Pat McAfee and his Merry Men, who were set to pounce on the injured champion. Balor halts the impending beatdown by announcing his new alliance with the Undisputed Era, who come out and–and this was perfect–hit the ring hard and the best brawl of the night breaks out as they go black. Great ending. The second hour was great.
