WWE NXT Review - September 2, 2025

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Lash Legend def. Jaida Parker

Both of these women feel like they're spinning their wheels at the moment with Parker failing to become the number one contender to the NXT Women's Championship at Heatwave and Legend losing her short-lived feud with Nia Jax (I'm surprised that didn't last longer than it did). Thus, pairing them together in a program isn't the worst thing, especially since they worked well together here and had a good opener. Parker attacking Legend afterward indicates there's more to come from them.

Josh Briggs Attacked Je'Von Evans

Evans isn't a natural talker, but I'm glad he took his time with his promo and spoke from the heart about Heatwave. It allowed him to connect with the crowd and really sell the loss. The Undertaker's signature gong hitting only for Briggs coming out instead was a nice swerve. Briggs has been hovering around the NXT Championship picture for months now and isn't any more interesting than he was before, but he is a logical obstacle for Evans to overcome on his road to another opportunity at the NXT Championship.

Candice LeRae def. Xia Brookside in a WWE Women's Speed Championship No. 1 Contender's Tournament Semifinal Match

Apparently LeRae got a new entrance theme and it's even worse than the last one. def Rebel strikes again! At any rate, I thought the Speed concept was fine when it aired weekly on X (though I never watched a single episode), but I don't really think the concept works on a regular wrestling television show. Five minutes would be better than three minutes. This could've been a fun sprint with more time, but what we got was passable for as long as it lasted.

#DIY Attacked TNA World Champion Trick Williams

#DIY coming out to their original CFO$ entrance music on the 10-year anniversary of their NXT debut was very cool. They've obviously been heels all year on SmackDown, but it made sense for them to return to NXT as babyfaces ahead of the upcoming Homecoming episode. This was an effective way to hype that up and build toward whatever they're setting up for that show (assuming this wasn't just a one-off appearance for #DIY).

Jordynne Grace def. Evolve Women's Champion Kali Armstrong (Non-Title)

Grace interrupted a match Armstrong was having with Karmen Petrovic on NXT TV several weeks ago, so I don't know why it took Armstrong so long to want revenge on Grace. I appreciated that this was a competitive contest because Grace beating Armstrong in a matter of minutes wouldn't have been a ringing endorsement of the Evolve brand. Why wouldn't Monroe attempt to interfere after Grace cost Blake Monroe her match with Kelani Jordan last week? At least Grace and Monroe brawled afterward. 

Josh Briggs def. Andre Chase

I figured this would've been saved for next week's episode after their backstage altercation earlier in the episode, but I guess they wanted to quickly give Briggs a rebound win after losing to Ricky Saints last week before he battles Evans next week. Chase scored some offense, but otherwise, this was a glorified squash win for Briggs. He also attacked the rest of Chase U afterward for additional heat.

Hank Walker, Tank Ledger, Ricky Saints and NXT Champion Oba Femi def. DarkState (Cutler James, Osiris Griffin, Saquon Griffin and Dion Lennox)

These DarkState six- and eight-man tag team matches have gotten ridiculous as Tony Khan's obsession with "all-star" tag team matches over in AEW. It doesn't help that they serve little purpose storyline-wise or accomplish anything meaningful. This was a solid match, but the focus was more on Hank and Tank enlisting the help of Joe Hendry by saying his name than it was Femi and Saints (though it was probably better that it wasn't all about them "teasing tension").

Overall Show

We still don't know what the Homecoming episode will entail exactly in two weeks, but I'm curious to see if there will be a throwback element to it or just the fact it'll be emanating from Full Sail University. As for this edition of NXT, it was an average effort. It was fairly straightforward stuff with nothing standing out other than #DIY's unannounced return.

SEE MORE: NXT Reviews