1. It’s NXT time and tonight Asuka defends her title against Peyton Royce while DIY face the Authors of Pain in an attempt to regain the tag team titles.
2. Our first match of the night features the flamboyant Patrick Clark, formerly the patriotic Patrick Clark, the egotistical Patrick Clark and the unremarkable Patrick Clark. Will this latest gimmick stick or will we be seeing grunge Patrick Clark next? Altar boy Patrick Clark? TNA Champion Patrick Clark?
3. The man of many gimmicks is facing Sean Maluta, who you might remember as one of many Samoan wrestlers distantly related to The Rock. My god, it looks like it says ‘strapon’ on the back of his trunks. Poor font choice, dude. Clark wins with a rocker dropper.
4. Sanity are homeless and standing around a fire barrel, while Eric Young writes some Bray Wyatt level bad poetry. But they’re not derivative, because they have a Scottish woman. And a Yeti.
5. So we’re calling Peyton Royce ‘the Venus Fly Trap’ now? That isn’t an Australian plant. How about ‘The Wattle?’ Either way, she is facing Asuka, who Nigel McGuinness apparently knows a lot about, but has trouble communicating in intelligible English despite being from England.
6. Best match so far between Asuka and Royce, who are beginning to develop a strong chemistry in the ring. Asuka bumps hard and sells to make Peyton look like a legitimate threat, then casually destroys her with a snap suplex. After some more back and forth Royce picks up a near fall with a spin kick, but Asuka kicks out and grabs the Asuka lock for the submission victory.
7. Post match Billie Kay hits the ring and beats down Asuka until Ember Moon makes the save, decimating both Kay and Royce. Just for fun, Asuka holds the belt over Moons head, challenging her to bring it on. After last weeks triple threat travesty, this is exactly what Ember Moon needed.
8. Recap of Cassius Ohno’s return to NXT, including his call-out of Bobby Roode which involved Ohno getting his ass handed to him, then throwing a shoe. Welcome back, Cassius, if that is your real name.
9. Main event time and the Authors of Pain are taking on Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa, better known as DIY. Frankly, it would take a miracle for DIY to regain at this point, but they make it look possible throughout the match. For a monster heel tag team the Authors are almost completely heat-free, with the crowd sitting on their hands rather than booing while AOP are on offense. Any time DIY get a hint of victory the crowd come to life, but Akem and Razar clear still have a lot of work to do.
10. In the end this almost turns into a decent match before The Revival interfere for the DQ, which is a decent way to continue the three-way team rivalry. Overall a pretty good episode of NXT, although I’m not too sure about Patrick Clark…
