WWE NXT Review - January 25, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

MSK def. Jacket Time in a Men's Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic Quarterfinal Match

I like that we got this match in the second week of the tournament because we've gotten some "bracket busters" already and thus it was believable that Kushida and Ikemen Jiro could've pulled out the victory here. This was hardly hurt by the babyface vs. babyface dynamic as the action was entertaining and the crowd was into it. I'm a fan of Jacket Time and I was glad they got to showcase their skills here, but I wasn't a fan of Kushida taking the losing fall. MSK have a decent chance of going all the way and winning their second straight Dusty Classic.

NXT Champion Bron Breakker Confronted Santos Escobar

Breakker vs. Escobar has been confirmed as the next feud for the NXT Championship and I'm all for it. Granted, Escobar has zero chance of winning the title, but he's racked up a few wins recently and is a fresh foe for Escobar, who will benefit greatly from working with the young guys. They had a good back-and-forth to set up their eventual championship clash, which I assume will take place on the Vengeance Day show next month.

Solo Sikoa def. Boa in a No Disqualification, Falls Count Anywhere Match

Sikoa looks beyond badass with the face paint and fake burns. The guy was already a star on the rise, but I'm starting to think he'll be on either Raw or SmackDown by the end of the year. He's got some serious potential. Boa is the exact opposite in that I think he's a lost cause, but he's been marginally better with this new gimmick of this. They made the most of the stipulation and had a fun match. That splash off the top rope through the table from Sikoa was a thing of beauty.

Duke Hudson def. Guru Raaj

Hudson interrupted last week's match between Raaj and Dante Chen, so it was only logical that Hudson would face Raaj this week. Thankfully, he made short work of him and looked dominant doing so. On the bright side, it appears he's ditched the dumb poker gimmick, which was a career killer. A lot of people still see him as generic, so we'll see if he'll be able to get past that and I think him becoming more intense is a step in the right direction.

Kay Lee Ray, Indi Hartwell and Perisa Pirotta def. Toxic Attraction (NXT Women's Champion Mandy Rose and NXT Women's Tag Team Champions Gigi Dolin and Jacy Jane)

KLR, Hartwell and Pirotta are clearly being positioned as the next number one contenders to the women's titles, so it made sense for them to win here. From an in-ring standpoint, this was a solid six-woman tag team affair. It wasn't amazing by any means, but everyone held their own. Rose vs. KLR is a nice feud to do over the NXT Women's Championship, and it's about time the NXT Women's Tag Team Championship got defended.

Grizzled Young Veterans def. Andre Chase and Bodhi Hayward

I have no idea why NXT has tried to repackage Grizzled Young Veterans as the bad guys from Home Alone. News flash: Not everyone needs a gimmick. They were perfectly fine as is. They didn't do any of that crap here and instead let their in-ring work shine instead. It was a better-than-expected bout that saw Chase carry Bodhi to a passable performance and Grizzled Young Veterans advance as they should have. Von Wagner emerged afterward, attacked Chase and Hayward, and made his alliance with Robert Stone official.

Io Shirai def. Tiffany Stratton

The house shows NXT used to do across the state of Florida were made for people like Stratton. She may very well turn out to be a top prospect in the women's division in time, but she needs more experience and I don't think putting her on television at this point is a smart idea. Shirai is one of the very best NXT has and was on offense for a majority of this match, so Stratton was wisely kept limited. I'd say that Shirai needs a main roster call-up in the worst way, but I fear what a future on Raw or SmackDown would look like for her.

Cameron Grimes def. Tony D'Angelo in an NXT North American Championship No. 1 Contender's Match

Both of these guys have been on rolls recently, so it was genuinely unpredictable who would win. They had a well-wrestled main event and D'Angelo continues to prove his worth against everyone he's in the ring with. He didn't lose much in defeat since Pete Dunne cost him the win, which surprised me because I thought Dunne was headed to the main roster soon. He still could be soon, but not quite yet. The same be said for Tommaso Ciampa, who resurfaced at the end of the show by helping out Breakker against Legado.

Overall Show

As noted in the previous paragraph, I'm curious what the future holds for guys like Ciampa and Dunne considering they've wrestled on Main Event this month along with Roderick Strong and LA Knight. Keep an eye out for any of them potentially debuting in the Royal Rumble this weekend or at the very least some one-offs from people like Breakker and WALTER, er, I mean, Gunther. Not as much stood out to me from this show like last week and the second hour was especially lame. This episode felt like it was just kind of there, but at least we know we have Vengeance Day on the horizon for February 15th.

SEE MORE: NXT Reviews