WWE NXT Review - August 7, 2014

Jason Jordan takes control of Colin Cassady.

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Enzo Amore and Colin Cassady def. Jason Jordan and Tye Dillinger in an NXT Tag Team Tournament Quarterfinal Match

Jordan and Dillinger are still lacking in the charisma department, but in terms of athletic ability, the two have very good chemistry together. Amore and Cassady, on the other hand, are extremely over with the audience and have no problem getting the crowd invested in the match. It didn't feature much out of the ordinary, but I got a kick out of the finish with Cassady helping Amore pick up the win. The tag team division has been lacking for far too long in NXT, so this match was a step in the right direction.


CJ Parker def. Xavier Woods

These two had a stinker of a match the first time around, so this was a significant improvement. It also happened to Parker's best match yet, but that goes without saying. They worked very well together and actually had the crowd buying into many of the near-falls. Woods had an especially eye-opening outing that will hopefully show officials how great of an athlete he is. They had a much better match than expected, but I hope this is the end of their feud since neither of their characters are all that interesting.

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Could Bayley beat Eva Marie?

Bayley def. Eva Marie

Who thought it was a good idea to have Eva wrestle in front of a very smarky Full Sail University crowd? Then again, whose idea was it to have Eva wrestle at all? Her posing on the cube atop the stage was... odd, yet it fit her character perfectly. The match was as mediocre as you'd expect given her involvement, but Bayley somehow managed to make it passable. Above all else, the hilarious chants toward Eva from the crowd during this match made it worth watching.


Sami Zayn and Adam Rose def. Tyson Kidd and Justin Gabriel in an NXT Tag Team Tournament Quarterfinal Match

Zayn and Rose made for a very entertaining duo and Kidd and Gabriel were the perfect foils for them. The in-ring chemistry was certainly there and while the match on the whole wasn't as chaotic as expected, the pace was consistent and the action down the stretch was a blast. Rose going to the top rope is something you don't see too often, so that was pretty cool. I don't expect Rose and Zayn to make it to the finals of the tournament, but this was a smart way of furthering the feud between Zayn and Kidd while also moving along the tag team tournament.


Overall Show

I prefer this four-match format to the usual six short matches we usually get on NXT. Granted, not every match on this show was great (see: Eva vs. Bayley), but they were all decent to good and everything served some sort of a purpose. There was nothing groundbreaking, but it was a fun hour that seemed to fly by.

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