Before this week’s episode begins we get a card dedicating it to the memory of Bruno Sammartino. We get the standard issue opening video and then it’s off to Full Sail for action. Mauro and Percy Watson are on commentary tonight with Nigel out due to the birth of his child.
Continue reading “NXT (April 18, 2018)”
We’re at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans, LA for NXT TakeOver. The show begins with a shot of the crowd. A bunch of people have glowsticks for some reason. As has become the norm for TakeOvers we begin with a band (this times Cane Hill) playing live while a video hyping the show plays them. I think this is a pretty cool way to intro the show and is a better use of music than the random mid-show musical performance that will happen at Mania.
We start things off this week with a brief video package about Dusty Rhodes and the previous Dusty Tag Team Classic events before going to the NXT Command Center where Charly Caruso is standing by. She hypes tonight’s Dusty Classic finals and confirms that Bobby Fish is injured and will be out of action this Saturday. The winners tonight will face Undisputed Era in New Orleans for the NXT Tag Team Titles.
Time for some NXT. This week’s episode starts with a video package detailing Hideo Itami’s quest for respect and how it led to him butting heads with Kassius Ohno. These two will collide in a No DQ match tonight!
We get the opening video and then it’s off to Full Sail for wrestling action. Mauro Ranallo, Nigel McGuinness and Percy Watson are calling the action.
We start things off with a video package highlighting TakeOver: Brooklyn III while Code Orange plays. WWE always does a solid job of video packages and highlights and this is no exception.
We head to the Barclays Center for tonight’s wrestling action which means these matches were recorded prior to TakeOver and that they’re more or less going to be wrestling for wrestling’s sake, which is fine by me.
This is the final NXT show before TakeOver: Brooklyn III and the main event will see Roderick Strong taking on the #1 contender for the NXT Championship, Drew McIntyre. If Strong wins he gets a shot at Bobby Roode at some point in the future. If McIntyre wins…uh…I don’t know. Nothing happens I guess. The stakes couldn’t be more middle of the road!
The show begins with a video hyping the matches between No Way Jose and Killian Dain and Hideo Itami and Oney Lorcan. We get the opening credit with their new theme song and then its on to Full Sail where the crowd is already chanting “NXT! NXT!” and then it’s on to the ring for the first match of the night.
