WWE NXT Review - March 21, 2023

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

NXT Champion Bron Breakker Saved Carmelo Hayes From Pretty Deadly

Hayes and Trick Williams interrupted Pretty Deadly, which led to Williams challenging Pretty Deadly to a match on the behalf of Breakker and Hayes. In other words, this segment played out exactly as you'd expect and was paint-by-numbers stuff by WWE standards. Despite it being basic, at least is set up the night's tag team main event with Williams later explaining to Hayes backstage that he wanted Hayes and Breakker to team so Hayes could learn Breakker's offense ahead of Stand & Deliver.

Tiffany Stratton def. Indi Hartwell to Qualify for the NXT Women's Championship Ladder Match at Stand & Deliver

These two first faced off two months ago and this was another quality contest from them. It helped that there were stakes this time with the winner advancing to Stand & Deliver, though the outcome wasn't in doubt with Hartwell losing a lot of her matches lately and Stratton being undefeated since returning. She was a logical choice to qualify as she's my current pick to walk out the new champion.

Dragon Lee and JD McDonagh Confronted NXT North American Champion Dragon Lee; McDonagh vs. Ilja Dragunov Ended in a No Contest

Shawn Michaels made it official last week that Lee will defend his North American title against four other challengers at Stand & Deliver. The other Lee (whose English is better than I was expecting) emerged to put his name in the hat, followed by McDonagh. The subsequent McDonagh vs. Dragunov match was the usual great stuff from the two as they're incapable of producing anything less than that and the non-finish was done so they could both logically enter the Fatal 5-Way. The final spot will be determined by a Battle Royal on next week's show.

Johnny Gargano Challenged Grayson Waller to an Unsanctioned Match at Stand & Deliver and Attacked Javier Bernal

Bernal was the perfect person to put in there and enter to Gargano's entrance music to make people think it was Gargano himself and generate heat. Gargano showed nice intensity as he should have coming off last week's attack and I like the stipulation given the bad blood between the two. Waller said he'll sign the contract next week on NXT provided that Gargano is banned from the building. Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa stole WrestleMania weekend with their Unsanctioned match five years ago and I expect Gargano and Waller to kill it as well. This was a solid segment.

Lyra Valkyria def. Ivy Nile to Qualify for the NXT Women's Championship Ladder Match at Stand & Deliver

Nile discussed Tatum Paxley's betrayal during a backstage interview beforehand, so I thought for sure Paxley would cost her the win here. Shockingly, that didn't happen and Nile lost clean. She's lost a lot of momentum in recent months and it's unfortunate because she was once undefeated and seemed to be on the right track. This was a fine match while it lasted but was too short to be anything out of the ordinary.

NXT Champion Bron Breakker and Carmelo Hayes def. Pretty Deadly

Yes, NXT did the tired "can they coexist?!" crap with these two, and ultimately, they did. Hayes is basically in babyface mode at the moment, so as I've said before, it will be interesting to see if Hayes does anything heelish to reestablish himself as a heel either before or at Stand & Deliver. This was your average tag team main event with the outcome everyone saw coming, but it was well wrestled and what it needed to be. 

Overall Show

I'm not a fan of half of the card for Stand & Deliver being multi-person/team matches in an attempt to get everyone on the show, but I understand it's WrestleMania weekend and they want to get as many people exposure as possible. This wasn't a stellar show by any means, but it was an improvement over last week. The build to Stand & Deliver has been all over the place, but I expect the event to deliver, nonetheless.

SEE MORE: NXT Reviews