Four championships will be defended, one vacant title will be claimed, and a brutal rivalry will be laid to rest at NXT Battleground. In the main event, the hometown hero returns as Carmelo Hayes defends the NXT Championship against the former champion, Bron Breakker. Meanwhile, the vacant NXT Women’s Championship will be determined as the finals of the Championship Tournament take place between Lyra Valkyria and Tiffany Stratton, and the GALLUS duo of Mark Coffey and Wolfgang will defend their NXT Tag Team Championships against Julius and Brutus Creed. Also, Noam Dar will defend the NXT United Kingdom Heritage Cup against Dragon Lee in the Cup’s first defend on North American soil in a Heritage Rules Match, and Wes Lee will put his NXT North American Championship on the line against both Joe Gacy and Tyler Bate. Finally, Ilja Dragunov and DIJAK look to settle their beef when the two collide in a Last Man Standing Match.
+ Carmelo Hayes (c) (w/ Trick Williams) vs Bron Breakker (NXT Championship): I loved this match. On a show that felt like a developmental show, this was a proper main event between two great professional wrestlers. Carmelo had a huge amount of support as the home town guy, and that translated to how much the crowd hated Breakker, too. One big moment in particular will surely live on forever in replay videos on the best of NXT, and in the end I was left more than satisfied with this match as the main event
+ Ilja Dragunov vs DIJAK (Last Man Standing): I was really looking forward to this one and it didn’t disapppoint. This was easily the match of the show, and probably the best match of the string of wrestling shows over this weekend. Especially after DIJAK had those matches with Tony D’Angelo recently (and as good as D’Angelo is for his experience level), I was looking forward to DIJAK being able to cut loose with someone like Dragunov, exactly as he did with Keith Lee back in the day. Of course, Lee and Dragunv are VERY different wrestlers, but I like DIJAK getting to toss guys around like he did her. This was really, raelly good
+ Noam Dar (c) vs Dragon Lee (NXT UK Heritage Cup): overall this was a good match, but I think the rounds formatting hampered it. Perhaps just a regular two-out-of-three falls style would ahve made more sense, even if you kept the rule of a short break between falls. Noam Dar is someone I really enjoy to hate, and he is still so young. Dragon Lee is of course fantastic, and I was curious as to how he would translate into the western wrestling style. The answer is: perfectly
+ Wes Lee (c) vs Tyler Bate vs Joe Gacy (w/ Ava Rain) (NXT North American Championship): Bate is really good, but truthfully all three of these guys did a great job. Wes Lee is so quick and athletic, and Joe Gacy did some great power stuff. I am glad Gacy has, more or less, outgrown his initial and stagnant persona. I enjoyed this match a lot, even though I wasn’t a big fan of the story coming in
– Lyra Valkyria vs Tiffany Stratton (Women’s Championship Tournament Final): I really want to give this a positive score becuase it was significantly better than I was expecting it to be. Valkyria is competent, but perhaps not quite ready to be leading Stratton through a long match like this. Stratton in particular looked like she was waiting for the next rehearsed sequence at a few points. As mentioned, this was still better than I thought, and that’s a good sign for both of these women
– GALLUS (Mark Coffey & Wolfgang) (c) vs The Creed Brothers (Julius Creed & Brutus Creed) (w/ Ivy Nile) (NXT Tag Team Championships): overall this was not very good, but holy smokes Julius is so impressive. I truly can’t think of much to say about this other than the ending sucked and I didn’t care for it
> I love it when NXT is not in Full Sail. It’s such a nice change of pace, and the shows feel like a much bigger deal
Should you watch this event: Any wrestling fan needs to go out of their way to see both the Hayes/Breakker main event, and in particular the DIJAK/Dragunov Last Man Standing Match. The rest you can take or leave, but the LMS match in particular might be my favourite of the entire weekend of shows.
MoshFish Reviews 