Velveteen flies off the top rope as he tries to win the NXT title (WWE)
WWE NXT Results and Grades: This NXT was packed with some amazing matches that were worth featuring on a PPV.
The biggest one was Adam Cole defending his NXT World title against Velveteen Dream. Dream had been causing a lot of problems to the Undisputed Era in recent weeks, and he finally had a chance to claim the gold.
There was another important match between Charlotte Flair and Io Shirai for the Women’s title too. Karrion Kross also made his debut on NXT and the Cruiserweight round-robin tournament continued too.
Without further ado, here are the results and grades from this week’s WWE NXT.
Ever since last week when this match was announced, Dominik Dijakovic has hit out at Johnny Gargano and Candice LeRae.
Dijakovic has posted some rather unflattering things about the husband-wife pair, and finally got his hands on Gargano.
It was Dijakovic that got the best of the early going but LeRae was more than ready to distract him throughout the match.
That allowed Gargano to use an exposed turnbuckle and then hit the One Final Beat to win.
Gargano beats Dijakovic
Grade B
This might have been a surprise match setup but it was a decent enough watch. Dijakovic had his moments but it was interesting to see Gargano use a lot of heel tricks to pick up the win, which goes well with his new persona.
It was Akira Tozawa taking on Jack Gallagher in the Cruiserweight Championship match. While Tozawa hasn’t had a lot of great moments on Raw or SmackDown lately, he was impressive against his rival.
The Stamina Monster hit a DDT and then a top-rope senton to pick up the win and go 2-0 in his group.
Tozawa beats Gallagher
Grade B
The match felt a bit rushed but the result was interesting for Tozawa’s time on NXT. It is strange that he gets crushed on the main roster but is doing well in their tournament.
Chelsea Green was with Robert Stone as she took on Xia Li next. Although Green got some great offence in the important moment came a little later.
Aliyah came out to distract Li and Green took her chance to pick up the win.
Green beats Li
Grade C
This was another match that felt too rushed and having another clash with distractions didn’t work out. Sure, Li and Aliyah have their rivalry and all, but it felt like Green was just the sideshow for the main story.
Just weeks after attacking Tommaso Ciampa, Karrion Kross was in action against Leon Ruff.
Scarlett Bordeaux was also by ring-side as Kross destroyed Ruff. Ruff was hit by two Doomsday Saito suplexes before he tapped out to the Kross Jacket.
Kross beats Ruff
Grade B
Kross is being made to look like some monster and that is exactly what WWE achieved from this.
Squash matches aren’t always great and Ruff didn’t get anything from this clash, but Kross needed to look good in his first NXT outing, and he did.
Charlotte Flair has been excellent since picking up the NXT Women’s title at WrestleMania 36. However, she got a real taste of a rising star as Io Shirai went head-to-head with the more experienced Queen.
Shirai also seemed to have Charlotte struggling before the Queen started beating her rival with the kendo stick.
That caused a DQ and handed Shirai the win but not the belt. Rhea Ripley then came out to make the save.
However, Shirai wasn’t impressed by all this and confronted Ripley for coming out to save her.
Shirai beats Charlotte by DQ
Grade B
Shirai vs Charlotte was going well until they decided to do the DQ. While this allowed for a future bout between the pair, bringing Ripley back makes for an interesting clash too.
Ripley hasn’t got her rematch since losing at WrestleMania and we could see a triple threat clash in the future.
Kushida is another star who has been excellent in the Cruiserweight round-robin tournament. He was up against Tony Atlas and got his rival to tap out easily to an armbar.
The win helped Kushida go 2-0 in his group as the Timesplitter spoke about winning the interim Cruiserweight crown.
Kushida beats Atlas
Grade C
Another match that was rushed as NXT packed a lot of clashes. Kushida could have gotten more time to show-off his skills but it is interesting that he is also 2-0 in his group. The Timesplitter hasn’t received a huge boost since making his NXT debut but that seems to be changing now.
Finn Balor first came out to promise he would destroy the attacker who assaulted him before we got a match between Cameron Grimes and Denzel Dejournette.
Dejournette actually got a few hits in on the Technical Savage but it was Grimes who picked up the win.
However, Grimes decided to have some fun with Balor and the Prince wasn’t pleased. He came out and silenced Grimes and also sent a message to his attacker.
Grimes beats Dejournette
Grade B
While the win for Grimes wasn’t the important aspect of this section, it was Balor’s aggression towards the end.
His attack at the end shows how focused he is on taking care of a rival, but Grimes needs more to do on NXT as he is one of their better performers.
Cole vs Dream had the hallmarks of being a classic but there were some shenanigans during the match.
Cole constantly taunted Dream as the rival tried to get the belt. However, Roderick Strong and Bobby Fish came out to distract Dream.
This allowed Dexter Lumis to make a weird appearance as he tried to even the odds. However, one attack from Lumis sent Strong into the referee.
Dream hit the Purple Rainmaker on Cole but the referee couldn’t recover in time to make the three count. This gave Cole a chance to hit the superkick and he followed it up with the Last Shot to keep the title.
Cole beats Dream
Grade B
This wasn’t the kind of ending people expected, especially with Cole and Dream being excellent performers.
Bringing Lumis and the two members of UE might mean that Dream gets another shot at the gold. But the main question is, what is Lumis’ role in all this? What does he get to achieve by helping Dream or is he just targeted the UE?
NXT came in second in the TV ratings war regarding their Wednesday rivalry with AEW Dynamite.
This week, NXT got in 663,000 viewers, which was a growth from last week, but it wasn’t enough to beat AEW.
Dynamite got 732,000 viewers (h/t Showbuzz Daily) and won another week of the Wednesday Wars.
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