Below, we have the NXT results from the Tuesday, November 9th show, along with highlights and headlines coming from tonight.
NXT Results, highlights and headlines from last week’s show
WWE NXT Results 11/9
Toxic Attraction def. Io Shirai, Kacy Catanzaro & Kayden Carter
Pete Dunn Promo: Calls Out Tony D’Angelo, and gets interrupted by Carmelo Hayes and Trick Williams
Kay Lee Ray def. Sarray
MSK’s adventure continues for their “Shaman”
Joe Gacy Promo: He calls out Boa, keeps recruiting Harland
Joe Gacy def. Boa via DQ
Solo Sikoa Promo: Interrupted by LA Knight and Grayson Waller
Creed Brothers def. Jacket Time. Odyssey Jones makes the save after the match
Toxic Attraction Promo: No one’s good enough to take their titles, interrupted by Raquel Gonzalez who says Mandy Rose should keep the Women’s Championship warm for her
Raquel Gonzalez calls out Dakota Kai, but Kai gets jumped by Cora Jade first
Chase University: Chase teaches on mental health and focus, and gets called out for his mic error last week
Grizzled Young Veterans Promo: They practice distracting strangers in order to distract referees
Cameron Grimes def. Ru Feng
Duke Hudson confronts Cameron Grimes about their poker game
Solo Sikoa def. LA Knight and Grayson Waller in a triple-threat
Tony D’Angelo brings a dead fish as a threat to Dexter Lumis
Elektra Lopez wins squash match, sends flirty message to Xyon Quinn. Quinn dances his way into a beatdown and into our hearts
Pete Dunne def. Carmelo Hayes
NXT Highlights From 11/9
Women’s Division Gets Time to Shine in the Ring
The two opening matches of this night added a nice depth to both the tag and singles women’s divisions in NXT, and it was a welcome way to start the night. For all the flack NXT 2.0 has received since its inception in wrestling Twitter and media, I don’t think enough credit has been given to the spotlight they’re giving the women’s divisions when it’s so clearly lacking in most of WWE and even in AEW.
In the first match of Toxic Attraction versus Shirai, Catanzaro and Carter kept the champions looking strong, while making Io seem like the biggest star on the show and even giving Carter and Catanzaro chances to show why they should be pushed in the tag division. The big thing here was it was a great match with an invested crowd. Kay Lee Ray and Sarray had more of the same in their encounter, which pleasantly gave time to both women to long strong as KLR seems to be positioning herself as a future champion. Overall, the first 30 minutes of this show was basically all great in-ring action featuring the women’s division, and this should be a lesson not only for NXT going forward but for other promotions as well in giving their female stars the time they deserve.
Two Acts Turn Dumb Into Fun
NXT 2.0 decides to go to the dumb side of its stories a little more than I would like, but this week I thought two segments, in particular, showed some stars may be turning those lemons into lemonade.
First, the Grizzled Young Veterans on the streets stealing food came across like it was going to be a stupid off-branch of MSK’s promos. But in reality, it proved to be practice for cheating. While it maybe could’ve been less cheesy, there’s no doubt that the idea of heels swindling strangers to better tamper with the rules made me crack up, which was the point.
But I thought the real stars of making chicken crap into chicken salad were Cameron Grimes and Duke Hudson. Last week, the two played poker for the whole show, but tonight they somehow made me care about their feud. Duke came across as a spoiled, rich hustler who couldn’t stand his own medicine, and Grimes came across as his natural, hillbilly hero persona. The promo was interesting because Hudson really leaned into the “What” chants, but it was worth the watch just to hear the passion of Grimes cut through. I’ve been begging in these articles for weeks to see Grimes do more on this show, and I was finally happy to see Grimes get a little closer to the spotlight once again this week.
Solo Sikoa Makes A Statement
The recently debuted younger Uso Brother, Solo Sikoa, got his first real opportunity to show what he can bring to NXT in his triple threat match against LA Knight and Grayson Waller. This match had two functions: to put over the powerhouse Sikoa and to further the feud between Knight and Waller. It achieved both in a simple, but compelling way.
The story here was that Waller and Knight had to work together to keep Sikoa down, and when they eventually tore each other apart, it gave Sikoa the chance he needed to win with a Uso-Tribute Splash. I’m more interested now in Sikoa’s rise to eventual title contention I would assume, but also what they decide to do with Waller and Knight. I don’t know why, but there were almost teases here of a tag team forming down the line, and if that gave these two more mic time together, I think their boisterous personalities could actually gel together. They would need to squash their current feud first though, which I would think happens soon as they have been beefing for over a month now.
Hayes and Dunne Cap Off the Best NXT 2.0 so Far
Depending on your opinion, that might not be the highest bar, or you may have preferred Halloween Havoc. But I don’t think you can deny that the in-ring action especially this show was the best since the rebrand, with even the sillier segments making me laugh. And when you have a main event like Hayes and Dunne, it honestly sells the show by itself. Hayes and Dunne started off a little stiff with their difference in styles, but eventually, they built to a match that would’ve stole the show on any promotion, and on most pay-per-views.
Dunne has been almost absent for a month now, and he returned to the limelight in a big way here. The match is a must-watch, but more importantly, I think, is what it means for the North American Title picture. Hayes lost due to interference by Johnny Gargano and Dexter Lumis partially, so he can still look strong. However, Gargano, Lumis and now especially Dunne all loom large in the future of Hayes. Hayes has been the real star of NXT in recent weeks, and these matchups have me pumped for upcoming shows and feuds. What more could you hope for?
NXT Lowlights From 11/9
What’s Happening With Boa?
It’s spooky season in November, apparently, as Boa got a makeover this week that was… interesting. Boa’s new face paint seemingly just brought a more aggressive side through most of his match with Gacy, and to be honest, looked cool. The crowd was rooting for Boa, which not only gave me hope his character wasn’t completely dead after months of treading water, but also shows how good his opponent Joe Gacy is at getting heat.
However, what was less cool was how the match ended. Both guys were really building towards a good match until red lights started flashing in the arena — WWE’s universal sign of all things supernatural. This caused a seeming personality change in Boa, who choked Gacy out with the ropes until he was DQ’d by the official. Once the match was over and the lights faded, Boa appeared to snap out of his trance and almost regret his loss of control. And all of this added up to one big… meh. I like doing things with Boa, and a change in character is good, but this was too vanilla for me. Not only did they make his character almost exactly a copy of Finn Balor’s Demon with the face paint and red lights, but also it didn’t even help him win. This match had some upsides, but overall, I don’t have high hopes for what happens next with Boa.
NXT Headlines
WWE continues its string of mass releases in 2021. This time, they are parting ways with Ember Moon, Keith Lee, Karrion Kross, Mia Yim, Gran Metalik, Nia Jax, Lince Dorado, Jeet Rama, Katrina Cortez, Trey Baxter, Zayda Ramier, Jessi Kamea, B-Fab, Oney Lorcan, Franky Monet, Eva Marie and Scarlett Bordeaux. Some of these releases caused cries of wasted potential, with former NXT champions and stars like Lee, Kross, Yim, Moon and Lorcan. While others, like B-Fab, Baxter and Monet, were especially baffling, as they were recently featured on NXT and seemed to be in the middle of storylines right before this release.
Unfortunately, this is only the latest of these mass releases and may not prove to be the last.
