Why I Love Wednesdays – NXT March 7, 2018 Review

After the combined five hours of RAW and Smackdown Live, it’s always nice to sit down on a Wednesday to watch nearly an hour of solid, high quality wrestling.

You very rarely come away from an NXT broadcast thinking, “Well, that wasn’t very good, I was expecting better wrestling,” because all of the matches are given the right amount of time that they deserve.

But anyway, enough gushing from me, let’s have a little talk about last night’s show.

The Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic began with a repeat of the 2016 final. Unfortunately for TM61 (Nick Miller and Shane Thorne), they weren’t able to reverse the result from two years ago, once again losing to the Authors of Pain in a very solid match.

As many know, NXT is filmed weeks in advance, but I will not be revealing any spoilers for the rest of the tournament which is set to culminate at NXT Takeover: New Orleans on Saturday, April 7.

The rest of the quarter-final match are as follows:

• Heavy Machinery vs The Street Profits
• Sanity vs Riddick Moss and Tino Sabbatelli
• Danny Burch and Oney Lorcan vs Pete Dunne and Roderick Strong

The Dunne and Strong tag team was formed during a segment in which Adam Cole and the rest of the Undisputed Era got in Dunne and Strong’s faces, after Strong had shown respect to Dunne following their UK Title match three weeks ago.

It was also announced that Dunne will face Adam Cole next week for the UK Title, which should be epic.

Bianca Belair squashed a sweet looking jobber called Miss Drew Renee to continue the push she looks to be getting. Good.

Shayna Baszler moans in a backstage segment that Ember Moon isn’t a fighting champion because she’s not responding to any call-outs. Hmm, I wonder if she will eventually respond and set up a title match. I wonder . . .

Tomasso Ciampa is such a great heel. He didn’t say a word during his nearly 10-minute segment. He came to the ring to a chorus of “you suck!” and “we want Johnny” chants after his distraction caused former tag partner Johnny Gargano to “leave” NXT.

The crowd’s boos seemed to get to Ciampa, who, just as it looked as though he was leaving, grabbed a fan’s Johnny Gargano sign, ripped it up and thrashed it with his crutch, which, by the way, he definitely doesn’t need anymore.

The main event was a tasty showdown between Aleister Black and Killian Dain. Although it certainly could have gone longer, it was a good match that Black won with a Black Mass outta nowhere (Sorry Randy!).

This was a number one contenders showdown for Andre Cien Almas’ NXT Championship, and now that Black has made it to TakeOver, there have been very few matches that I have looked forward to as much as his bout with Almas. If given as much time as Almas vs. Gargano, then Almas vs. Black could easily be a contender for match of the year.

All I’m saying is, bring on TakeOver: New Orleans.

Next week: SAnitY (Eric Young and Alexander Wolfe) vs. Tino Sabbatelli and Riddick Moss (Dusty Rhodes Classic match), Street Profits vs. Heavy Machinery (Dusty Rhodes Classic match), and also, Adam Cole vs. Pete Dunne for the UK Championship.

 

• johnny gargano
• Aleister Black
• Authors of Pain
• bianca belair
• ember moon
• shayna baszler
• Street Profits
• andrade cien almas
• TM61
• tomasso ciampa
• WrestleTalkTV
• AOP
• SAnitY
• Heavy Machinery
• Killian Dain
• nxt

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