WWE NXT Review - July 15, 2015

Murphy takes control of Angelo Dawkins.

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Chad Gable and Jason Jordan def. Steve Cutler and Elias Sampson

It's been a long time coming, but we finally have The Shoot Nation on NXT TV! They're a great fit for a team together and I'm surprised it took this long for them to make their televised debut as a tandem. They have really good chemistry together and they maximized their minutes so to speak by making this a fun little squash. Hopefully it's not too long before they enter the NXT Tag Team Championship picture as they have the potential to be a top team in NXT.


Samoa Joe def. Axel Tischer

Joe's squash matches that rarely exceed a few minutes are always a guilty pleasure if I do say so myself. He inflicts pain on his opponents like nobody else and these brief matches are a great way of showcasing his dominance. Tischer, to his credit, sold well for Joe's offense, so props to him as well. But now the question is what's next for Joe. With Kevin Owens contending for the NXT Championship at the live special in August, he doesn't have a ready-made feud for the event, but perhaps something new will start for him in the next month.

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Sasha Banks locks in the Bank Statement on Charlotte.

Eva Marie Announced Her In-Ring Debut For Next Week

Eva Marie gets too much unwarranted hate from Full Sail University in my opinion. I'm not her biggest fan by any means, but at least she's taking the time to improve her in-ring game and I, for one, am anxiously looking forward to seeing her in-ring return next week. If she shows no signs of improvement, then I'll know I was wrong, but I would love to see her turn some heads and impress the audience by having a better than expected outing against whoever her opponent is.


NXT Tag Team Champions Blake and Murphy def. Angelo Dawkins and Tyler Futlon (Non-title)

Blake and Murphy have improved leaps and bounds as a team and it's amazing just how much Alexa Bliss adds to their act. They've always been above average in the ring, it's just been a matter of the duo finding themselves as characters. After two other squash matches, this one in particular didn't do anything for me, but it was an effective way of furthering the momentum of the tag team champions and give them an easy win.


Sami Zayn Addressed His In-Ring Return

Zayn's injury back in May couldn't have come at a worse time considering he was on the brink of being called up as an official member of the main roster. Of course, injuries happen, but here's wishing him a speedy and full recovery. His promo giving us an update on his injury (saying he won't be back until next year, which sucks) was well done and I'm glad we were finally given a timetable on when we can expect him back. Royal Rumble return, anyone?


NXT Women's Champion Sasha Banks def. Charlotte

These two have had so many matches in the last year that you think they would have grown tiresome by now, but that couldn't be any further from the truth. They simply create magic every time they're in the ring together and this was another gem of a match between the two. I also love how it was positioned in the main event of the show and it makes me think that they are actually capable of headlining an episode of Raw someday if WWE truly got behind them and the rest of the women. Any chance they cried after the match because they knew they were getting called up soon or did it just mean that much to them?


Overall Show

The squash matches, albeit enjoyable while they lasted, were inconsequential, but at least they established the likes of Samoa Joe, the tag team champions and the newly formed tandem of Jason Jordan and Chad Gable. Eva Marie's promo was short and sweet while Sami Zayn's injury date made the show newsworthy. To top it all off, we had a unsurprisingly great main event from the women, making for a solid edition of NXT on the whole. It will be interesting to see how the card of the next NXT TakeOver special starts to take shape over the next month.

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