 Nathan Frazer & Axiom def. The LWO (Joaquin Wilde and Cruz Del Toro) and The O.C. (Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows) in an NXT Tag Team Championship No. 1 Contender's Triple Threat Tag Team MatchFrazer and Axiom have gelled into a terrific team and I'm glad they're headed to Stand & Deliver to challenge for the tag titles. This was a fun, nicely-paced three-way and a wise choice to start the show. It's slightly strange that The O.C. returned to NXT only to not end up on the Stand & Deliver card, but I'm not complaining as I'd rather see Frazer and Axiom in that spot and take the tag titles (which is virtually guaranteed with Bron Breakker now on the SmackDown roster). Jacy Jane def. Fallon HenleyI honestly can't recall the last match Henley won, which is a shame considering she beat Tiffany Stratton at the beginning of the year and that win was wasted. Jane's been around for a while, but personally, I see more upside in Henley right now than in Jane. The match was decent, but this was more about setting up the six-woman tag team match for Stand & Deliver than anything else. Lexis King def. Von WagnerThe definition of a throwaway match. I like King and Wagner has gotten over as a babyface in front of this crowd, but putting these two together is almost asking viewers to change the channel. This was a very basic bout and perhaps the best part about it was that it didn't overstay its welcome. I appreciated King winning for a change, but it's not like it's a meaningful win in any way. Did this have to happen on this show other than to just kill time? Lola Vice def. Karmen PetrovicVice just lost to Natalya last week, so having her rebound with a win here made sense. Petrovic is a prospect worth keeping an eye on, but she needs more character development beyond being aligned with Natalya. The match was passable but too short to be anything more than that. At least this is giving Vice something to do after unsuccessfully cashing in her NXT Women's Breakout Tournament title shot two months ago. NXT Women's Champion Lyra Valkyria Attacked Roxanne Perez on Supernova Sessions Hosted by The Meta-FourI find most stuff involving Meta-Four to be unbearable and this was no exception. I hate that they'll be serving as the hosts of Stand & Deliver because that just guarantees we'll be seeing a lot of them throughout the event. The back-and-forth between Valkyria and Perez in this segment was solid, but all the crap from Meta-Four in the background while they were talking was incredibly annoying and distracting. NXT North American Champion Oba Femi def. Joe Gacy (Non-Title) by Referee StoppageWhat a weird match to do ahead of Stand & Deliver. Both Femi and Gacy are babyfaces (to my knowledge, anyway), so the crowd didn't seem to side with one guy over the other. The match was going fine until Gacy got hurt and they had to cut it short. Thankfully, they went with the referee stoppage instead of rushing to the finish. Gacy must not be too hurt if he's going to face Shawn Spears on Saturday. Arianna Grace def. Wren SinclairI was expecting Gigi Dolin to confront Grace to follow on their backstage face-off a few weeks ago, but no such luck. I wonder why she didn't appear. Nonetheless, this was okay. Sinclair has done nothing but lose since debuting on NXT TV. She's very talented, but I get the feeling that we're not going to see what she can do until she turns heel eventually. Grace building momentum and getting more screen time is encouraging to see, though. Sol Ruca def. Blair DavenportRuca is going to be a top star in WWE's women's division in the coming years and having her work with more seasoned stars like Davenport will only help with her development. This was on the shorter side, but they had a well-worked match. I assume Ruca winning decisively means their feud is already over, but I suppose they can continue it by building to another encounter if they wanted to. Carmelo Hayes and Trick Williams BrawledHayes and Williams did an effective job of recapping their rivalry and their history in addition to driving home the point why Hayes betrayed Williams in the first place. Both guys cut strong promos and spoke with intensity. Doing a show-closing brawl on the go-home show ahead of an event is an NXT specialty, but it worked really well here and it left me looking forward to their match on Saturday. Overall ShowThe Stand & Deliver potential, but I am genuinely shocked they've sold as many tickets for it as they have with the current product being as cold as it is. Yes, it's WrestleMania weekend and WWE fans are in town anyway, but that's been the case for years. I'm sure it'll deliver (no pun intended), but this edition of NXT didn't exactly do the strongest job of hyping up the event. There was a lot of stuff that simply didn't matter and could've easily been saved for another time.
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