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411’s WWE NXT In Your House Preview
Image Credit: WWE
Hello 411 guys, gals, enbies, and everyone else! Welcome to 411’s NXT In Your House preview! I’m Jeremy Thomas as always, and WWE is giving us a double dip of PPV action this weekend starting with In Your House on Saturday! NXT is back to Peacock-airing PPVs, at least for this event, and they certainly do have a show for their return!
By that, for the record, I mean that we have a show. And that’s what it seems like: just a show. Don’t get me wrong; there are certainly some solid matches on the card here that should deliver in the ring, but there is a distinct lack of buzz around most of these matches. That said, NXT is always pretty good at delivering in the ring when it comes to the big events and I hope that it can do the same here.With all that said… let’s hop right in, shall we?
Legado del Fantasma vs Tony D’Angelo, Stacks & Two Dimes
NXT isn’t big enough for two factions of crime, and thus we have Legado del Fantasma taking on Tony D’Angelo and his thugs. This feud has been going on since D’Angelo defeated Tomasso Ciampa and declared himself “The Don” of NXT. The set-up for the feud was pretty sound, though it has led to Legado being in yet another heel vs. heel feud (remember when they were feuding with Hit Row?). The two factions have been mostly relegated to sneak attacks and meetings to declare truces that are immediately broken, none of which has helped get this feud over despite the skills of the talent involved. Either way, it brought us to this match where the winning team subsumes the other team into their crime family under the winning stable leader’s control. If not for the stipulation, I would expect this to be a way for Tony D and company to beat Legado and send them to the main roster. But that’s clearly not the case as the stip can’t be held to if Legado just quickly leave NXT. While NXT officials clearly see Tony as their potential next big thing, Legado is more established and work better as potential contenders than Tony and the team of Stacks & Two Dimes. I could be thoroughly wrong, but I’m going with Legado winning this and the two groups breaking up soon enough.
WINNER: Legado del Fantasma
NXT Women’s Tag Team Championship Match
Toxic Attraction vs Katana Chance & Kayden Carter
This is probably the hardest one to pick for me. One one hand, Jacy Jayne and Gigi Dolan’s fates seem tied to Mandy Rose’s in the same way any tag team is to their stable leader’s in a trio and I don’t know if they lose the titles before Mandy does. On the other hand, Chance and Carter seem like a good choice to take it off them, at least as much as any other. The challengers haven’t accomplished a ton as a team, but they are legitimately one of the few legitimate women’s tag teams in NXT as opposed to a thrown-together duo. That makes them a solid fit for the titles, especially considering how well they work in the ring. Aside from the minor blip of their loss to Raquel and Dakota at Stand & Deliver — a blip they fixed three days later — Dolan and Jayne have been champions as long as Mandy Rose and I ask the same question I’ll be asking a bit further down — if not Carter and Chance, than who? I’m going out on a limb here but I think we do get a title change here, setting up some additional tension for Mandy for the NXT Women’s Championship match later in the show.
WINNER: Katana Chance & Kayden Carter (NEW NXT Women’s Champions)
NXT Tag Team Championship Match
Pretty Deadly vs. The Creed Brothers
Pretty Deadly came into NXT US with a major win, as they took over the vacancy left by MSK and captured the NXT Tag Team Championships. That put them on a collision course with The Creed Brothers, who never got the two-on-two title shot they were promised as winners of the Dusty Rhodes Classic. Since then, The Creeds have been fighting the odds and dealing with cracks in the foundation of the Diamond Mine as Malcolm Bivens left WWE and now Roderick Strong is running roughshod. The story here is that The Creed Brothers want their revenge and title shot, while Strong has decreed that if The Creed Brothers don’t win then they’re out of Diamond Mine. That latter story makes me lean toward the idea that The Creeds will lose, because the Creeds and Ivy Nile are clearly transitioning to babyface status while Roddy is staying thoroughly heel. On the other hand, the same could be accomplished if The Creeds win and they ultimately kick Roddy and Damon Kemp out. I could fantasy book this all day, but I think WWE is going to pull the trigger on splitting The Creeds from Strong. Nile has been kind of more doing her own thing as of late with the Ivy Nile Challenge anyway, so likely the champs retain and then the feud becomes The Creeds vs. Diamond Mine — with perhaps Pretty Deadly as well in a triple threat match for the titles next.
WINNER: Pretty Deadly (STILL NXT Tag Team Champions)
NXT North American Championship Match
Cameron Grimes vs. Carmelo Hayes
Despite winning the title from him in a five-way ladder match at NXT Stand & Deliver, Cameron Grimes has not been able to shake Carmelo Hayes who has been adamant about getting his rematch with Grimes. At the same time, Solo Sikoa has been making his claim to a title shot and argues that he’s got next. That makes this match for the championship a prelude to what should ultimately be the title match with Sikoa in short order. This is probably the match with the most potential on the card; we know Hayes and Grimes are both great in the ring and they’ve had plenty of experience working with each other, which can only play into this bout’s show stealing potential. When it comes down to who wins, it’s hard for me not to go with the current champion.
There is absolutely an argument to be made that Grimes’ title win was to get him some gold and pay off the emotional storyline of needing to win the title as a tribute to his father, and that he could lose it without losing too much shine. On the other hand, Hayes seems like a good potential contender for the NXT Championship soon and leaving him with a North American Championship to defend inhibits that. Additionally, Grimes already has a feud awaiting him in Sikoa, while the dynamic between Hayes and Sikoa has not been played up nearly as much. From a pure storytelling perspective, the result that makes the most sense is Grimes winning here, and Hayes perhaps moving onto another feud that he can come out victorious in so that he can jump up and challenge for the NXT Championship later in the year. On the flip side, if Hayes wins I don’t know where Grimes goes, as I don’t think he’s primed for success on the main roster yet and a loss sends him back down a notch after struggling so hard to get where he is. For that reason, my money has to be on Grimes.
WINNER: Cameron Grimes (STILL NXT North American Champion)
NXT Women’s Championship Match
Mandy Rose vs Wendy Choo
The time has come to take the NXT Women’s Championship off of Mandy Rose very soon. I’m not saying this from a place of disdain for the champion; I think that the Toxic Attraction leader has done a good job as champion and has delivered more than people have expected in her position. But the fact of the matter is, Rose has been on top for the better part of a year now and during that time she’s defeated just about everyone in the division. For the title to seem fresh, we need a new champion so we can get new feuds. The problem is this: is Wendy Choo the person to take the title off of her? I’ll admit that Choo has done far more with this dorky gimmick than I thought possible, and this is a semi-long term storyline so there would be some kind of payoff in her winning the championship. I just can’t buy the idea of Choo as champion in this character. Choo is talented in the ring and Rose can hold her own well enough that the match should be okay, but this feels like an example of WWE booking something temporary as they wait for someone (perhaps Io Shirai, Roxanne Perez, or Cora Jade?) to be ready. While I do think Mandy needs to give up the championship soon, I just don’t think this is the place it happens.
WINNER: Mandy Rose (STILL NXT Women’s Champion)
NXT Championship Match
Bron Breakker vs. Joe Gacy
Bron Breakker and Joey Gacy’s feud has been running a couple of months now, which is honestly a month longer than I expected (and a month longer than it needed to be). That’s no hate on Gacy, who is doing what he can with a character that it’s hard to add new layers to. But this whole feud has constantly felt like a stopgap feud while someone else is built up to be a bigger threat to Breakker, only it’s kept going. I appreciate the effort they’ve been putting into making this feel like it matters, but just about everything has felt slightly off and the stipulation for this match — that Breakker loses the title if he’s disqualified — has been done far better before. The fact that we haven’t seen the identities of Gacy’s minions makes me worry that this feud is going to continue, but unless WWE wants to push Breakker to the main roster already, I don’t see any reason to put the title on Gacy. And I don’t believe they see Breakker as ready for the main roster, so I expect Breakker to get the win here. Breakker is very talented in the ring but his last match with Gacy, while solid, didn’t hit a level that makes me expect the kind of greateness we’ve seen from NXT PPVs. So we can only hope Breakker gets the clean win and moves on from here.
WINNER: Bron Breakker (STILL NXT Champion)
And that’s all we have for NXT In Your House! Like I said before, it may not be the most thrilling show on paper but it does feel like a shot that can deliver more than we might expect. 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, I have to go; Joe Gacy is looking at me a certain way and it’s starting to damage my calm…
