WWE NXT Review - July 24, 2014

Rusev locks in the Accolade on Adrian Neville.

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

NXT Tag Team Champions The Ascension def. Johnny Vandal and Aaron Solow (Non-title)

I'm honestly at a loss for words and any longtime viewers of NXT should know why. I still enjoy the Ascension act, but it's the same thing every single week. It's not necessarily their fault. They just need stronger opponents that aren't local athletes. It's good that a tag team division is building around them, but it'd help if they mingled with the other teams a bit more. They can't be that anti-social, can they?


Tyler Breeze def. Mojo Rawley

The match was as short as it was probably because Breeze is still injured, so I don't have any problem with that. What I do have a problem with is Rawley being the one who had to take the loss. In a way, he was protected because he was outsmarted by Breeze and Rawley's matches should never be long because he's limited in the ring, but they've spent so much time trying to build him up that a quick loss was mind boggling. I hope Breeze heals up soon so he can finally kick off his NXT Championship feud with Adrian Neville.

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Could Charlotte retain her title against Summer Rae?

NXT Women's Champion Charlotte def. Summer Rae

Charlotte may not be the best worker in the NXT women's division, but she's improved enough over the last year where I expected this to better than it was. It wasn't a bad match by any means, but the crowd turned on it pretty quickly and the action wasn't all that great. It might be due to both still being heel, but this match wasn't what it should have been. If nothing else, it was a nice clean victory for Charlotte, though it leaves me wondering if the feud is set to continue past this point.


Sin Cara and Kalisto def. The Vaudevillians

The match felt a lot longer than it actually was, but it was solid and probably the best tag team bout in a long while. The crowd wasn't receptive to Sin Cara being revealed as Kalisto's tag partner and I can't say I'm surprised. Sin Cara hasn't meant anything in so long that the "dream team" feel of putting the two together is long gone. Either way, they're a nice addition to the tag division and they worked a nice match with The Vaudevillians here. Anything is better than a complete squash at this point. We've seen enough of those from The Ascension to last a lifetime.


NXT Champion Adrian Neville def. Rusev by Disqualification (Non-title)

I didn't think this match would get much time based off how late it started in the show, but it was fine for what it was while it lasted. Rusev is undefeated on the main roster and Neville is the champion, so one had to assume that there would be a non-finish here and it worked. The attack on Neville put heat on the interfering Breeze, but I'm not sure Rusev benefited from any of this. There aren't any other heels in NXT that Neville could have gone up against instead?


Overall Show

A lot of the recent NXT episodes have been good to great, so it was surprising that this one was rather mediocre. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was terrible, but a lot of the matches didn't get as much time as they should have and were uneventful in the process. There's usually one or two of these kind of shows every set of tapings, so it's fine. That said, don't feel the need to go out of your way this week to watch this particular edition of NXT.

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