WWE NXT Review - August 24, 2021

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Million Dollar Champion Cameron Grimes and Ted DiBiase Celebrated

As I've said before, this angle with Grimes, DiBiase and LA Knight has been my favorite thing in NXT all summer and the payoff was perfect at TakeOver 36. This was a nice way to cap off the storyline with DiBiase endorsing Grimes as the new Million Dollar Champion and it made for a cool moment. The question now is where everyone in the storyline goes from here. We found out later on that Grimes gave the Million Dollar title back to DiBiase, so hopefully he can maintain momentum now that he's on his own again.

Ridge Holland def. Timothy Thatcher

In this "new" era of NXT, Holland definitely seems like someone the brand will want to get behind. He's massive, is a hard-hitter and has a certain legitimacy about him. Having Pete Dunne as an ally will only help his cause as well. He and Thatcher had a highly physical battle in the time they were allotted. Post-match, the heels got the better of Thatcher and Tommaso Ciampa, and we also saw the return of Danny Burch alongside Oney Lorcan. It looks like Dunne, Holland, Lorcan and Burch will be one massive faction going forward based on the promo they cut later on.

Kacy Catanzaro and Kayden Carter def. Gigi Dolin and Jacy Jayne

Catanzaro and Carter have turned into a terrific team this year and have had some really fun matches, but the commentators referring to them as the "TikTok team of NXT" was extremely cringeworthy. That alone made me want to see Dolin and Jayne win, which would have been the better outcome anyway because they're the new team on the block. Sadly, it wasn't meant to be, but maybe it was done for a reason with Mandy Rose scouting them afterward. The match was well-wrestled, but the end result was questionable. As I've said before, NXT's women's tag team division is completely pointless when you consider that we barely see the champions on the show.

Kay Lee Ray def. Valentina Feroz

For those unfamiliar, KLR is the longest-reigning NXT UK Women's Champion of all-time at over 600 days, and I believe the longest-reigning women's champion of any kind in WWE since Fabulous Moolah (and that's a record that will never be broken, unfortunately). She's a hell of a talent and moving her to NXT was a smart call. This was complete destruction from KLR and she looked great. I'm curious if she'll be next to challenge Raquel Gonzalez for the NXT Women's Championship or if it will be Franky Monet.

NXT Champion Samoa Joe Welcomed Challenges From Pete Dunne, LA Knight and Kyle O'Reilly

Well, this was complete chaos and pretty much what we see any time a new babyface champion is crowned in WWE. Several new challengers were established including Dunne, LA Knight and Kyle O'Reilly. Knight will probably be fed to Joe on TV one of these weeks with Dunne getting the first shot at the title... depending on his contract status, that is. Maybe O'Reilly will be the one to ultimately take the title from him? He has a score to settle with Holland before then, though. None of the mic work stood out in this segment, but I enjoyed it overall.

Carmelo Hayes def. Odyssey Jones to Win the NXT Breakout Tournament

As I've said before, I've been following Hayes' career for the last five years or so and have been a big fan of his work. His evolution has been fun to follow and he's transformed into a total star. Jones has a ton of potential in his own right, but he's much more inexperienced compared to Hayes. Thus, Hayes winning was the correct choice. This was probably the best match of the tournament because it could have gone either way, though that isn't saying much given how the matches were just sort of there for the most part. I could honestly see Jones being fast-tracked to the main roster soon given his recent dark match appearances on the main roster, but I'd advise against it.

Boa def. Xion Quinn

I have no idea who Xion Quinn is as I've never heard of the dude. He's obviously a Performance Center recruit and because of that, I expected him to get squashed here, the same way Boa won a few weeks ago. Instead, Boa took his eye off Quinn momentarily and that allowed Quinn to capitalize and pick up the victory. The commentators called it an "upset," but is it really an upset when Boa has largely been positioned as an enhancement talent up to this point? This Tian Sha act has officially overstayed its welcome in my opinion.

Legado del Fantasma (Santos Escobar, Raul Mendoza and Joaquin Wilde) def. Hit Row (NXT North American Champion Isiah "Swerve" Scott, Top Dolla and Ashante "Thee" Adonis)

When you have the level of talent that you do in a main event match like this, it should be no surprise that it's above-average. I've been digging this faction feud and the in-ring work was frantic and entertaining. Legado del Fantasma evened the odds by adding Elektra Lopez (who lost to Franky Monet a while ago on the show) to their ranks and Escobar pinned Scott to likely earn himself a future title shot. This was a really good way to close the show.

Overall Show

This edition of NXT was taped in advance, which hopefully won't become the norm for NXT as we enter this apparent "new era" for the brand. There weren't any major changes made on this show, but reportedly they're still coming. I doubt it will be a hard reboot of the brand when you consider that Joe is now NXT Champion and Hayes (a smaller guy) won the Breakout Tournament, but time will tell. There wasn't anything too newsworthy coming out of this show, but the two hours flew by and there was some solid stuff mixed in there. Fingers crossed the quality of NXT won't decrease dramatically and some of the changes end up being for the better.

SEE MORE: NXT Reviews