Pantoja’s WWE NXT Review 12.28.21

WWE NXT 2.0

December 28th, 2021 | Capitol Wrestling Center in Orlando, Florida

We start with Grayson Waller, who is on this show weekly an obscene amount of times, who cut a promo about appearing on Raw this past week. We even got footage of it. He ran down Dexter Lumis, who was his scheduled opponent but that isn’t going to happen. Likely due to COVID-19 protocols. After dissing Indi Hartwell too, Odyssey Jones returned to confront him for a new match.

Grayson Waller vs. Odyssey Jones

The majority of this match saw Jones throw Waller around with relative ease. He hit a side slam heading into break but during that time, Waller took over with some rest holds. After the commercial, he hit his flying elbow that looks like a between the legs dunk. You’d think a move designed after Vince Carter’s iconic dunk would look cooler than that. Jones got a bit more offense in before he was sent into the exposed turnbuckle. Waller then won with a rolling stunner in 7:36. That was largely a fine match that was inoffensive and nothing more. [**¼]

AJ Styles appeared on the screen to say that he’ll face Waller at New Year’s Evil. Nothing about this angle is interesting to me though AJ should get a solid match out of him.

Cora Jade and Raquel Gonzalez were interviewed in the back about teaming up tonight ahead of next week. Io Shirai and Kay Lee Rey interrupted to say they also want a shot. Mandy Rose interrupted via the screen to say that she’ll give her Toxic Attraction girls the night off (more protocols I assume) and these four can compete. The winning team gets the Triple Threat shot next week.

Grayson Waller (segment #2) was mad that AJ interrupted him and had a short argument with MSK as he walked off.

Xyon Quinn spoke to say that Elektra Lopez needed to pick a side tonight.

MSK hit the ring in front of this crowd that really doesn’t deserve them. Riddle gave them a pep talk via the screen to say that he’ll be around next week to guide them. Imperium interrupted and MSK wanted a title shot right now. WALTER interrupted remotely to run them down so Riddle came back on and issued a six-man tag challenge for next week, which was accepted. That’ll be dope. I do wonder why MSK was so excited though since this seems less beneficial than a title match.

Edris Enofe was interviewed about beating Von Wagner. That brought out the dull Wagner to interrupt which brought over Malik Blade to defend Enofe, setting up a match I guess.

Andre Chase vs. Harland

So, this was supposed to be Brian Kendrick vs. Harland. He no-shows (another COVID issue it seems) and Andre Chase appeared instead to say this was a teachable moment. It ultimately led to something of a match as Harland beat his ass for about a minute before the referee stopped this. The Harland/Gacy stuff isn’t working for me. [NR]

Legado Del Fantasma argued about something backstage and they kicked the cameraman away but they still kept recording with no repercussions. Solo Sikoa walked in and was told he was disrespecting even though he wasn’t. That set up another match.

Fallon Henley vs. Tiffany Stratton

Both ladies have been on 205 Live before but not NXT. Stratton had a lot of hype and build in vignettes but she kind of just came off as a carbon copy of so many other WWE blondes. That’s a shame. She didn’t show anything that would make me want to get invested in her and she flubbed the handspring elbow before winning with Downward Spiral in 2:36. That was about as bad as a debut can go. [NR]

Tony D’Angelo spoke saying that he warned Pete Dunne and now Pete has a smashed hand.

Wade Barrett conducted the old WWE staple, the contract signing. This one was for the unification match next week between Roderick Strong and Carmelo Hayes. The highlight of this was Carmelo Hayes talking trash at a fast clip so Malcolm Bivens had to translate for Roddy and then translate Roddy’s speech back to Hayes. Trick Williams stole the show with some fun lines. It was less interesting when Hayes and Roddy simply talked. Trick and Bivens got into it before the Creed Brothers but him through a table. It was a contract signing. It dragged a bit, likely due to a depleted roster.

Various teams speak about wanting the titles.

Santos Escobar vs. Solo Sikoa

On paper, this is a better idea than a lot of what we get on NXT 2.0. You’re putting a young, inexperienced guy like Sikoa in there with a veteran like Escobar. Working 10 minutes with Escobar will help. The issue here was that it was something of a styles clash and not in a good way. It’s like Sikoa was clearly not ready for this kind of match but I get it, he needs to learn somewhere. Escobar held serve for a good chunk of it and demanded that Sikoa fire up after he was struggling. Sikoa did rally and Xyon Quinn came out. Esocbar hit him with a dive and they argued before Sikoa won with a flying splash like he’s an Uso or something. The whole thing went 13:32 and Lopez never made the decision that was hyped earlier. [**]

Harland and Joe Gacy took Andre Chase to the roof to scare him but left him there. Okay.

Backstage, Boa took out Sikoa with the Tongan Death Grip and he also hit the cameraman. When that happened, Boa’s magic facepaint disappeared.

A video package aired to hype Bron Breakker vs. Tommaso Ciampa.

Malik Blade vs. Von Wagner

The idea here was that Wagner is some kind of brute but that really never shines through. As Wagner worked over Blade, Robert Stone watched from the back. Wagner nearly murdered Blade with a gutwrench suplex that looked sloppy as hell. Blade got in a few hope spots as we got “This match sucks” chants. Wagner won with an underhook spinning slam in 4:02. He sucks. [¼*]

Cora Jade and Raquel Gonzalez vs. Io Shirai and Kay Lee Ray

The War Games team explodes! This followed the tired WWE trope of having a team be UNEASY partners. Raquel was doing blind tags to take the shine, though KLR and Shirai did seem to work better. My biggest question with this is why they would do the overrun if they had such a short roster. A lot of this show was padding so it made this going past 10:00 seem like even more killing time. Anyway, after a commercial break, KLR and Io continued to work as a unit with KLR taking out Raquel with a dive as Io beat on Jade inside. She hit the Tiger Feint Kick and went up top for a missile dropkick. Things looked bad for Jade. She survived but got into it with Raquel again after Raquel hit a chokeslam. Cora went for the pin and dumbass Raquel broke up the pin. Why does it matter who gets the pin, you dummy? KLR rolled up Cora and Raquel knocked them back over to Cora got the three count anyway after 10:02. I wanted to like that more but bonehead booking and pointless arguments ruined this. [**¼]

Mandy Rose appeared on the tron to say that their desperation to beat her will lead to them easily getting taken out of the title picture.

5.0

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

This week’s show was likely going to be better before it got ravaged by COVID-19 stuff. Without the full roster, stuff felt jumbled, some segments ran too long, and then they still did an unneeded overrun.