WWE NXT Review - January 4, 2017

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

The Revival def. Tino Sabbatelli and Riddick Moss

Unless I'm mistaken, I'm pretty sure Moss was the one that Hideo Itami was in the ring with at an NXT live event in Florida when he got hurt a few months ago, which isn't hard to believe when you watch the showing he had here. Plain and simple, the guy is green as gooseshit. Sabbatelli isn't that much more experienced, but at least he appears to be a better wrestler at this stage. That said, I was shocked Moss did most of the in-ring work for his team and scored more offense than I thought he would. The Revival won in the end as they should have, but this bout was a bigger reminder to me that Moss shouldn't be put in the ring on these bigger shows until he improves.

Tye Dillinger and Buddy Murphy def. Bobby Roode and Elias Sampson

Murphy just might flourish as a face if he's pushed properly. Obviously, crowds in the United States won't react to him the same way his native Australia did here, but he has a moveset befitting of a babyface and that was evident in this match. Dillinger is extremely over in his own right, and Roode's gimmick is, well, glorious, so this was a really fun tag team match. It even made up for the involvement of Sampson, who typically bores me to tears, but at least he took the pinfall loss and not Roode.

Ember Moon def. Billie Kay and Liv Morgan in a Triple Threat Match

Morgan isn't anything special in the ring and Kay is still developing a personality for herself, so I figured Moon would carry a majority of this match, but it actually exceeded my expectations. Morgan was just kind of there, but she didn't take away from the matchup while Kay was beloved by the audience. That wasn't shocking in the slightest considering she hails from Australia and she did her best to not embrace the crowd. This was a pretty passable Triple Threat match that featured the right winner. Moon appears to be a lock to be challenging for the NXT Women's Championship at TakeOver: Orlando.

NXT Tag Team Champions #DIY def. TM61

The booking of TM61 has been inconsistent since they arrived in NXT, so Australia might have been the only place where this match received as much fanfare as it did due to the duo being Australia natives. This would have been an extremely entertaining match anywhere, but the fans were definitely more engaged in the action as a result of the challengers being hometown heroes. The two teams worked very well together and this was far and away the Match of the Night. The show of respect from the champs to TM61 afterward was a nice touch as well.

NXT Champion Shinsuke Nakamura def. Samoa Joe in a Steel Cage Match

WWE previously aired this match on NXT three weeks ago, though this was a longer version. For my full analysis of the matchup, you can read what I wrote about it originally, here. In short, it was a solid match but not the best of their series of matches. This was an improvement over their encounter in Japan, and seeing it again in full added to my enjoyment of it, but I'm beyond ready to move past this feud and start looking forward to Roode entering the title picture heading into the San Antonio special.

Overall Show

Similiar to last week's episode emanating from Japan, this was a glorified house show that was taped last month. But hey, I'll take these types of shows over the clip shows they tend to do where they would recap the highlights of the year in NXT. Nakamura vs. Joe was a repeat of what we've already seen, but the tag title match was enjoyable and the audience was electric enough that the two hours are almost necessary. However, TakeOver: San Antonio is less than a month away and NXT has a ton of building to do.