1. It’s NXT time and tonight is the night that Sami Zayn faces Samoa Joe in a 2 out of 3 falls match.
2. Regal hits the ring and announces Baron Corbin vs Austin Aries at the next Takeover event, and I’m desperately hoping that AA hasn’t been brought in just to job to the talentless pile of crap that is Baron Corbin. Stop trying to push him down our throats, HHH! It’s not working with Reigns, and it’s not going to work with Corbin.
3. Kicking off with Samoa Joe vs Sami is a good idea, as I really wasn’t in the mood for another Elias Sampson match.
4. Nice deliberate pace to start, with Joe working stiff and Sami paying him back in kind, followed by some solid mat wrestling from both men.
5. Zayn uses his experience to take control of the match for a while, sending Joe to the outside and teasing a tope con hilo before we go to break.
6. Back to the action as Joe catches Sami with a nasty overhead belly to belly suplex, then lays into him with strikes and head butts. Sami fights back again and again, and we haven’t had the first pin as we head into another as break. it looks like this match might run the entire length of NXT, which is fine with me.
7. We return in time to see Joe catch Sami with a one arm slam and a muscle buster for the first pin, and now there is another ad break?! What the hell, WWE and/or Fox 8! Seriously, if I subscribe to the Network, do I get to watch NXT without ads interrupting the action every five minutes? Because that might even be worth it…
8. Sami is out on his feet as Joe sets up a second muscle buster, but fights back at the last minute and hits a missile drop kick. Joe tosses Sami out of the ring and goes for a count out a bunch of times, but once again Zayn fights back and hits the tope con hilo.
Back in the ring Sami locks in the Koji clutch and forces Joe to tap out.
9. A sweet sunset flip powerbomb from the top rope sets up the through the rope diving DDT on the floor, made famous in Sami’s match of the year with Cesaro. You can feel the emotion as both men pull out all the stops to build up to the finale, as Sami refuses to tap out to the Kokina clutch and passes out in the middle of the ring.
10. Standout episode of NXT, and credit to everyone brave enough to let Joe and Sami fill the entire show. As Sami departs for his feud with Kevin Owens on Raw, Samoa Joe progresses towards a title match with Finn Balor at Takeover. Hell yeah.
