411’s NXT Deadline 2022 Preview

Hello 411 guys, gals, enbies, and everyone else! Welcome to 411’s NXT Deadline 2022 preview! I’m Jeremy Thomas, here as always, and today the Tuesday night brand steps inside the Iron Survivor Challenge for a brand new (and complicated) signature match to determine the next contenders to the top singles titles. Deadline has just five matches on the card just like Survivor Series: WarGames, which makes since considering both have big gimmick matches at their core. But the matches on tap for today do have a lot of potential including two title bouts and a heated(ish) grudge match, so let’s go ahead and jump right in!

Alba Fyre vs. Isla Dawn

Image Credit: WWE

First up is our grudge match for the PPV, as Alba Fyre seeks revenge against her fellow NXT UK alumna Isla Dawn. Dawn made her NXT debut on the November 15th episode, coming out of nowhere to spit her venom in Fyre’s face and cost the latter her NXT Women’s Championship match against Mandy Rose. The two crossed paths more than once across the pond, and they should hopefully get more than the five minutes they always got in NXT UK. Fyre was invariably the winner in their previous matches, but Dawn has just arrived in NXT and her big debut match (not counting her quick win over Thea Hail this week) should not result in a loss for her, especially if this is not intended to be a one-and-one. Expect Dawn to go over here, likely through some bit of witchery or mist spitting, to allow this feud to continue for a bit longer.

WINNER: Isla Dawn

NXT Tag Team Title Match
Pretty Deadly vs. The New Day

Image Credit: WWE

Pretty Deadly has been on a healthy run in the NXT tag team division, knocking off most everyone they can face on the brand. Thus, when they came out this week for their “Real Christmas Story” segment it was pretty certain they were going to get interrupted by someone new. Granted, I didn’t expect that “someone new” to be the New Day, but I will certainly take it. With the Bloodline maintaining a stranglehold on the titles on the main roster, sending some tag teams down to NXT to compete seems to be a solid move and New Day are your best first candidates. They add some star power to the PPV, and Woods and Kofi could use some new opponents as they’ve run through feuds with just about everyone on the main roster. There’s no question that we should get a great match here; Elton Prince and Kit Wilson have proven they can go, and they should match up quite well against the veterans. If I was sure that New Day were staying a while in NXT, I might predict that they upend the division a bit. But I’m not certain of that so I’m going to call this a win for the champions, giving them something that they can crow about for their next promo segments on NXT TV.

WINNER: Pretty Deadly (STILL NXT Tag Team Champions)

NXT Championship Match
Bron Breakker vs. Apollo Crews

Image Credit: WWE

Much like Pretty Deadly (and Mandy Rose for that matter), Bron Breakker has had a pretty dominant title reign. Breakker has held the NXT Championship since April, when he won it back from Dolph Ziggler, and since then he has defended it from all ccompetition including Gunther, Joe Gacy, Cameron Grimes, JD McDonagh, and even unified it with the NXT UK Championship against Tyler Bates at NXT Worlds Collide. That brings him to Apollo Crews, who made his intentions for the title known when he arrived on the brand in June. Breakker is a guy who feels like he could potentially be headed to the main roster soon; he’s got the look, an explosive ring style, and his NXT Title reign has established him some credibility. However, he does still feel like he needs a little bit of polish to make him a viable member of Raw or Smackdown and not just a guy lost in the midcard shuffle. And while a loss to Crews would provide the opportunity to move him on up, I don’t think WWE is looking to do that quite yet. Bron and Crews’ feud has been built on mutual respect, a nice change of pace from the usual feuds, and both guys have done their job well to keep the babyface vs. babyface dynamic interesting. This will be a hard-hitting match and Crews will likely be Breakker’s toughest opponent to date, but in the end Bron should pick up the win.

WINNER: Bron Breakker (STILL NXT Champion)

Women’s Iron Survivor Challenge
Roxanne Perez vs. Cora Jade vs. Zoey Stark vs. Kiana James vs. Indi Hartwell

Image Credit: WWE

NXT Deadline is introducing the Iron Survivor Challenge, a new concept that I’m a wee bit skeptical of. Don’t get me wrong, folks; it its core, it sounds like an interesting idea. But the rules are also convoluted as hell. WWE.com’s preview breaks down the format as simply as possible — which eight bullet points. Essentially, it’s a 25 minute scramble match with an Elimination Chamber-like entry pattern (every five minutes) and the most falls after 25 wins the match — with wrestlers that lose a fall send to a penalty box for 90 seconds. That’s… a lot. Now, if anyone can pull off a match like this it would be WWE, but it also has the potential of being an overbooked mess that gets caught up in the rules.

All that said, I’m staying optimistic for now. The women’s match offers the least amount of intrigue between the two, in part because we know the winner will be facing Mandy Rose. That makes Cora Jade, Kiana James, and Zoey Stark unlikely to win because a heel vs. heel rivalry never tends to work out well. Indi Hartwell is ostensibly a babyface right now, but she’s been moving more and more toward a dark side in recent weeks as seen in her interactions with Roxanne Perez, and a loss here could either turn her heel or send her to the main roster where she can pair up with her “hubby” Dexter Lumis again. Frankly, Roxy is the obvious choice to win here. She’s the only particularly viable contender to Mandy Rose, whose NXT Women’s Title reign has stagnated at this point, and she’s been built up to the point that she has to be considered the odds-on favorite to win the title. Expect Perez to win after fending off her rivals, sending her off to another date with Mandy.

WINNER: Roxanne Perez

Men’s Iron Survivor Challenge
Carmelo Hayes vs. Grayson Waller vs. Joe Gacy vs. JD McDonagh vs. Axiom

Image Credit: WWE

The men’s Iron Survivor Match has a bit more intrigue to it than the women’s version, only because there are a few more potential options to win the match. While Axion is clearly there more for the high spots than anything else, any of the other four men could be potential winners. Whether we like Schism or not, the group is on the rise since Ava Raine joined them and that could put Joe Gacy back in title contention, while NXT has kept JD McDonagh as a threat despite him not winning the NXT Championship yet. Meanwhile, Carmelo Hayes and Grayson Waller have yet to receive NXT Championship programs, and both are guys who would make viable opponents for either Breakker of Crews. All that said, McDonagh will remain a threat whether he wins this or not and he really doesn’t need it, nor does Gacy whose strength is more as part of his stable (and the Gacy/Breakker feud didn’t exactly set anything on fire). It makes more sense to give the win to either of the two who have yet to get a title shot. Hayes seems to be the obvious choice to eventually take the title from Bron, but he also seems more like someone WWE is going to want to build up to a WrestleMania weekend title shot at Stand & Deliver. That brings it to Waller, who would make a solid opponent for Breakker for a card like February’s NXT Vengeance Day (or even before, if they don’t want to wait). And being able to boast about being the first Iron Survivor is right up his character’s alley. So as much as I’m excited for the eventual Melo vs. Bron feud, I have a strong feeling that Waller takes home the big win here.

WINNER: Grayson Waller

And that’s all we have for NXT Deadline! It’s a smaller card but a pretty loaded one, and as long as they don’t fumble the Iron Survivor gimmick it should be a lot of fun. Thanks once again for reading and remember that we will have live coverage of the show courtesy our own Thomas Hall right here on 411mania.com. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m running away; the Schism is coming and I don’t particularly want to sit under their tree..

Image Courtesy of WWE