WWE NXT Results, Winners, Live Grades, Reaction and Highlights From July 22
Welcome to Bleacher Report's live coverage of WWE NXT on July 22.
TNA Slammiversary not only saw Trick Williams retain his TNA title against Mike Santana and Joe Hendry, but we also saw NXT women's champion Jacy Jayne win the TNA Knockouts Championship from Masha Slamovich.
The crossovers between TNA and WWE continue to be a big part of both brands, but whether it will benefit both in the end remains to be seen.
This week's show saw both champions return to NXT to celebrate their wins and much more. Let's take a look at what happened on Tuesday's show.
Hank, Tank, Zaria and Sol Ruca vs. The Culling
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Booker T gave the show a special introduction, which included him messing up Blake Monroe's name. He announced the eight-person mixed tag match before heading to the announce table.
NXT tag team champs Hank and Tank teamed up with Sol Ruca and Zaria to take on Shawn Spears, Nike Vance, Izzi Dame and Tatum Paxley.
The fight started before the bell, with the babyfaces meeting the heels in the aisle to begin brawling. But things cooled off quickly as Vance and Tank began for their teams in the ring.
This contest had a quick pace, frequent tags and a lot of multi-person spots, but it also suffered from everyone trying to move too fast sometimes. It led to a few mistakes that didn't necessarily ruin the match but certainly made it look like there wasn't enough planning ahead of time.
We returned from a break to see The Culling controlling the pace. The crowd chanted "This is awesome" following a nice sequence involving most of the competitors involved, but the biggest pop came when Zaria hit a slam on Spears.
DarkState made an appearance and it was enough of a distraction for Paxley to pin Zaria for the win.
Result: The Culling won
Grade: C+
Notable Moments and Observations
—Someone needs to teach Trick Williams how to buy a cowboy hat that fits. His was clearly three sizes too small.
—Ruca hit a nice X-Factor by jumping over Zaria to take out Dame.
—Vance came into the ring when he clearly wasn't supposed to at one point. It made a double-team move Hank and Tank were setting up look awkward.
Making History
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The NXT women's and TNA Knockouts champion came out to celebrate her big win with Fallon Henley and Jazmyn Nyx by her side. The crowd chanted "Jacy two belts" before she bragged about being a double champion.
Even though Jayne was in full heel mode, the crowd was fully behind her. It didn't take long for Lash Legend to interrupt her. Jaida Parker also came out, and things ended up in a fight.
The segment finished with Legend and Parker having a bit of a standoff, so the new double champion ended up not even being the main attraction at the end of her celebration segment.
The promo from Jayne was the usual heel stuff, but she did a good job with it. You could tell she was really excited to hold both titles.
Grade: B-
Jasper Troy vs. Ricky Saints
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LFG Season 1 winner Jasper Troy was in action this week when he took on Ricky Saints in a singles bout.
Saints took control early on, but Troy's power was too much for him to overcome and he found himself on the receiving end of a powerslam.
We returned from a break to see Saints trying to fight out of a bearhug. It took Saints using Troy's own power and momentum against him to begin building some momentum.
Both men took a big spill out of the ring, but they were back up and fighting up the ramp. The ref was trying to direct them back to the squared circle, but they were more worried about fighting each other.
The ramp collapsed under Saints, which was clearly an accident that was designed to happen later. Troy hit a senton onto him to help sell it, but it was just plain awkward by the end.
Troy beat the count back into the ring to win by count-out in a match that was hampered mostly by the ramp breaking too early.
Result: Troy won by count-out
Grade: C+
Notable Moments and Observations
—Troy was smiling a little during his entrance. It might be the first time we have seen that since he debuted in NXT.
—One of Saints' best qualities is his selling ability. He is great at looking like he is in immense pain.
The Undertaker Wants to Talk About it
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Trick Williams came to the ring for his segment with The Undertaker, but before The Deadman showed up, Trick bragged about retaining his TNA Championship.
He mentioned Taker and seemed to smirk to indicate he wasn't taking it seriously that he was coming to NXT to confront him.
The Phenom arrived to fans chanting his name before he said Williams was a dead man walking. He said Trick had everything except his respect. He tried to give the TNA champion some advice to fix his attitude.
Things got a little tense and Trick started to look intimidated. He tried to punch Taker but ended up taking a Chokeslam instead.
This was exactly how everyone expected this to end, but it wasn't a bad segment. It wasn't necessarily good, either. It was pretty down the middle.
Grade: C+
Notable Moments and Observations
—Williams needs to lean more into his heel side. It still seems as though he wants to be liked when he should be acting like he doesn't care about anyone.
—Taker came out to his Kid Rock entrance music.
Wren Sinclair vs. Blake Monroe
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Blake Monroe had her first singles match this week when she took on NQCC's Wren Sinclair.
Earlier in the show, Jordynne Grace was shown being banned from the arena since NXT general manager Ava knew she would try to go after Monroe for turning on her at Evolution.
Monroe immediately cornered Sinclair and stomped her into the corner. Sinclair tried to fight back but was taken out with a missile dropkick from the second rope.
The Glamour maintained control and hit a DDT for the pin and the win. This was a short one-sided contest designed to make Monroe look good. It worked, but the match itself was nothing to write home about.
As Monroe tried to give a promo, Grace fought her way through security to get to the ring. She took out several guards before Monroe hit a DDT onto a chair.
Result: Monroe defeated Sinclair
Grade: C
Notable Moments and Observations
—Michelle McCool was shown talking to Fatal Influence backstage.
—It made no sense to have Monroe try to act like a babyface at first. She is so much more natural as a heel.
—Sinclair's entrance was not shown, which is never a good sign.
The Greatest North American Ever
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Ethan Page came out to brag about still being the North American champion.
There was a table with what was clearly a new title belt next to him. He threw the old title out of the ring and revealed a Canadian strap he had made for a new belt.
Santino Marella came out to a nice pop to confront All Ego. He said Page does not speak for Canadians and ripped into him.
Santino ended up pulling out the Cobra and made Page retreat. It looks like we are going to see Santino take on Page next week.
This segment was fine, but the crowd chanting so much and causing the network to censor it made it hard to get into any of what Page was saying.
Grade: C+
Notable Moments and Observations
—The crowd booed the reveal of the Canadian flags in the ring.
—The CW was forced to censor a lot of profane chants, so a large portion of Page's promo could not be heard.
Oba Femi vs. Yoshiki Inamura vs. Josh Briggs
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The main event saw Oba Femi defend the NXT Championship against Yoshiki Inamura and Josh Briggs.
Briggs was sent out of the ring right away, but he came back in and tried to work with Inamura to take out the champ together.
Briggs and Inamura had some miscommunication issues but still managed to hit a few double-team moves on the titleholder.
This easily ended up stealing the show just due to the physicality and intensity from the competitors. It felt like everyone viewed this as an important match and made sure to give it their all.
Femi was able to get the win and retain his title by taking advantage of Briggs and Inamura being unable to work together anymore. As soon as it was over, Briggs ran Inamura over with a running boot.
Result: Femi defeated Inamura and Briggs
Grade: B+
Notable Moments and Observations
—It was kind of weird to see Briggs and Inamura working together after their recent issues.
—Femi kicking out so hard that he sent Inamura onto Briggs for a cover was a fun moment.
—It's a sad day when someone hits a chokeslam that looks way better than The Undertaker's, but Briggs did it in this match.
The Final Word
8 of 8This week's NXT probably looks like a pretty standard episode on paper. It had some matches, some promos and a few fights to set up future matches.
However, Tuesday's show endured a lot of hiccups that caused it to appear poorly planned and a little rushed, especially when the bigger mistakes occurred.
The ramp breaking under Saints while the camera was on Troy ruined what was supposed to be the big moment in their match; Booker T messing up Monroe's name was the kind of mistake he shouldn't be making at this point; and Page's promo being so censored due to chants made the whole segment hard to watch.
Most of what we got in the ring was uneventful or predictable, but everyone seemed to be putting in a lot of effort. The main event was the highlight of the night with three powerhouses fighting over the NXT Championship.
Grade: C
