WWE NXT Live Event Results
10/24/15
Aftershock Festival
Meet and Greet was Finn, Alexa Bliss, Emma, and Samoa Joe. A second signing session of the day listed on the website was cancelled for unknown reasons.
Enzo and Cass, accompanied by Carmella, beat Jordan and Gable. Cass’s knee still seemed injured (kayfabe). Huge audience pop with both tag teams to start the show. Massive chant along to Enzo and Cass intro. Enzo got the crap beat out of him for awhile until Cass came to the rescue. Some good action overall, but could’ve used more Cass.
Elias vs. Bull Dempsey was next. Match felt sluggish compared to opening match. Most of NXT fans in attendance seemed indifferent to Elias and I heard some NXT fans asking who he is.
Bayley vs. Alexa was next. Bayley got a huge pop, being only 2 hours from her hometown. Her family was there to cheer her on. Good energy and a fun match, but her last 2 matches with Sasha really cast a shadow over her feud with Alexa. Bayley won, of course.
Baron Corbin vs Samoa Joe was the afternoon main event. They rushed the front row of people in the left rampside seats out and sat Corey Taylor from Slipknot there. He got recognized quickly and got a “Corey Taylor” chant, to which chanted “Corey Sucks” in between. He was very friendly and took photos with fans. Samoa Joe shook his hand after entering; Baron Corbin talked some smack to him and kept coming back. At one point Baron gave Corey his tee shirt and told him he would autograph it for him later. This was one of the better Corbin heel performances I’ve seen, but he still didn’t have massive heat with the audience. Corbin threw Joe into the stairs in front of Corey, Baron got in Corey’s face and Corey slapped him. That got the biggest audience reaction of the match. While Baron was dazed, Joe got the advantage and threw him back in the ring for the pin.
Evening session opened with Dillinger vs Apollo Crews. Apollo started doing the 10 hand gesture after moves and even used Dillinger’s printed 10 sign at one point. Dillinger acted like his feelings were hurt for most of the match. Apollo Crews won.
Next up was Emma vs. Carmella. Carmella got a solid pop coming out, but the match was just okay. A few drunk metal heads also were shouting “take your tops off,” which killed the feel good vibe (and there were a fair number of kids there). Match went on way too long and because of similar looks and ring gear it was hard to tell who was who for some of it. Carmella ultimately tapped out. Sexist, drunk metal heads thankfully left shortly thereafter.
Next up were the Vaudevillains vs Dash and Dawson, who were wearing their newly won Tag Team championship belts. Vaudevillains were massively over, D & D had some heat at first but really won the crowd over with their heel turn when one would talk to the audience from the corner (while the other wrestled). For instance, they did the forehead to forehead pep talk and hugged at one point. Audience went “awww!” and Dash or Dawson shouted “we are both comfortable with who we are!” The match went on a few minutes too long, focusing mainly on beating up Gotch. All 4 men were in the ring for a stretch, which was the high point. In the end, D & D retained the belts by way of a pin.
Evening main event was Tyler Breeze vs. Finn Balor. Great surprise that Breeze showed up, given his Smackdown! debut this past week. This match was fantastic. Started with Breeze dancing around to avoid Finn making any contact. After a minute the action got going and it was a tight 15 minutes of evenly paced back and forth. Ref got knocked out and Tyler had Finn pinned for an audience 3 count. On his second attempt a replacement ref ran into the ring but it was counted as a kick out on 2. At one point Tyler was so frustrated the walked back up the ramp to leave and Finn chased after him, fighting their way back from the ramp to the ring. Finn ended the match with his usual finisher. Crowd was standing for most of the match. It was really good and felt like Tyler and Finn knew this might be their last time in the ring together for the foreseeable future.
All in all, a fantastic first day. Roster in attendance was hanging out and taking in the festival, so it was common to see the NXT Superstars wandering, sometimes being given high fives in passing. Some of the people I met said they came to Aftershock just for NXT, but this was definitely the first exposure for many concertgoers.
Looking forward to tomorrow!
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
