WWE NXT Revenge – Night 1: 3 Things We Loved And 3 We Hated

The first night of “WWE NXT Revenge” has come and gone, and while the night was light on actual revenge, there was plenty that happened. Want the detailed blow-by-blow, that’s over in the results page.

Now, it’s time for the Wrestling Inc. Staff to break down the best and the worst of the weekly edition of WWE’s developmental brand. There were highs, like the debut of Kali Armstrong, and there were lows, like the umpteenth Joe Hendry concert, or the fact that a show called “Revenge” was mostly about starting new stories and could’ve been any other episode of “NXT.”

Enough of my bloviating, let’s get to the sweet, sweet opinion content.

WWE NXT North American Champion Myles Borne is coming into his own at just the right time. As WrestleMania nears, the post-Mania call-ups to the main roster threaten to hollow out much of “NXT’s” main event scene. Without the likes of Joe Hendry or Ethan Page, “NXT” is going to need champions like Borne to step up into the roles and carry the show, just like Oba Femi or Bron Breakker or the myriad other developmental stars who had to step-in for main roster call-ups. It will some day be Borne’s turn, at the rate he’s progressing, to likewise get the brand ready to be carried by the Keanu Carvers and Shiloh Hills of the world.

Seeing Borne handle Darkstate on Tuesday was a reminder that Borne has just a little bit of that John Cena swagger. He delivered a good promo and then outsmarted the faction and stood tall at the end of the segment.

With Tony D’Angelo settling into his role as NXT Champion, it is nice to see Borne handle the midcard so well. It’s a time of change in “NXT,” and the champions are making it clear there are new benchmarks for the brand.

Written by Ross Berman

For a show called “Revenge,” it kinda felt like any episode of “WWE NXT.” It wasn’t a bad show. It just didn’t exactly give me my fill of violence or retribution. Next week’s casket match certainly seems that way, but too much of this show was focused on the future and new stories for me to really buy the name.

There was a debut, a tournament match, a failed chance at revenge by Jaida Parker, but nothing that really made me feel that some kind of payback had been delivered, and especially just one month after Vengeance Day. If “NXT” is going to have this obsession with naming things like Vengeance and Revenge, then it’s going to need to deliver more than Shiloh Hill building a coffin or Joe Hendry concerts, that are interrupted by guys Hendry barely has beef with.

Just a weird name for a solid show.

Written by Ross Berman

I will rarely say this about “NXT” and let alone WWE in general, but they actually made a brilliant decision tonight by having Kali Armstrong make her debut on “NXT” against another rookie in Skylar Raye. Not only did this allow Armstrong to show what she can do in the ring, but this was also a fantastic opportunity for Raye to show what she can do as well in her first proper introduction to the “NXT” Universe.

Armstrong and Raye also put on a very good showing in this match, especially when you take into consideration that they have just a little over a combined three years of experience in the ring since making their official debuts on WWE programming. While it was pretty expected that Armstrong would emerge as the winner, given that Raye wasn’t advertised as her opponent, Armstrong and Raye were still given a good amount of time on television. It didn’t feel like it was a squash match at all, despite having a clear winner, which worked perfectly in this context as a means of helping to get both Armstrong and Raye over rather than just Armstrong. From top to bottom, I thoroughly enjoyed this, and it ended up being the thing that stood out the most to me during what I thought was a pretty fantastic Week One of “NXT” Revenge all around.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

I don’t know what’s happening with Jaida Parker. I hope she’s not being punished for that botched suplex spot against Blake Monroe back in February, the one where Parker was said to have suffered a neck injury, after which she was out for a few weeks, but I don’t understand why she’s taken yet another loss. The crowd loves her, and it’s strange for “NXT” to not capitalize on that in matches like tonight, where Kelani Jordan taking the loss didn’t exactly matter.

Parker hasn’t won on “NXT” television since January 27, when she defeated Nikkita Lyons, and sorry to Lyons, but that’s not exactly a big victory. Before that, she last defeated Lash Legend way back in September. This isn’t including “NXT” house shows, of course, where she’s been more successful, but jeez. Her most recent loss before tonight was back at Vengeance Day in March, where she was defeated in a street fight by Monroe. Between the premium live event and tonight, she hasn’t wrestled on TV.

That’s a lot of Cagematch information to say that Parker should have won tonight in this feud against Jordan. Jordan is more than established on “NXT,” as the inaugural Women’s North American Champion and former TNA Knockouts Champion. She’s also likely headed toward the main roster, as we know WWE likes to keep couples together, and she’s soon to marry “WWE SmackDown’s” Carmelo Hayes. It looks like she’s putting in the work on the live event loop, so it’s a mystery as to what her future in “NXT” holds.

And, after the loss, of course, she wasn’t one of the women to step up to challenge Lola Vice at the end of the show. Parker should have won tonight, and she should have been out there. She could have followed Kali Armstrong and pushed her around and got in her face. That would be one heck of a match. Whatever’s going on with Parker, I don’t like it, and I guess I didn’t realize just how bad it all was until tonight.

Written by Daisy Ruth

I thought Lola Vice had a very solid first defense of the NXT Women’s Championship tonight over Jacy Jayne, and there were even two spots where they really had me sold that Jayne had just become a three-time champion. Vice was able to overcome the numbers game. However, as Fatal Influence was ringside and got involved twice, and the field for the women’s title going forward revealed itself as the show went off the air to cap off a really strong night of “NXT.”

I really liked how they did a similar spot to the one that led to Jayne winning the title for the first time against Stephanie Vaquer in this match. Vice had her in a submission hold in the ropes, and while Lainey Reid distracted the referee on the other side of the ring, Fallon Henley did the same kick around the ring post to Vice that she previously nailed Vaquer with, though tonight’s certainly didn’t look as clean. It led to the Rolling Encore that won Jayne the title for the first time, but Vice kicked out. It was a really nice callback for Jayne, and I thought it was special, even if Henley didn’t exactly land the kick.

Even after Reid hit her across the face, Vice wasn’t rattled enough to stay down. She hit the 305 to Jayne for the victory. In the closing segment, which I also really loved, the newly debuted Kali Armstrong took out Fatal Influence on the ramp and squared up to Vice on the ring apron. On the other side of the ring, Kendal Grey reminded Vice she was also still looking for gold, and Izzi Dame and The Culling appeared on the terrace in the crowd. Zaria’s music also hit, and she attempted to make her way down to the ring, but she was intercepted by her opponent next week, Sol Ruca.

To me, this felt like “NXT” was kind of showcasing who is going to be around following presumed main roster call-ups after WrestleMania. It’s been rumored for quite some time that Blake Monroe and Ruca are going up, and I believe Jayne’s name has also been thrown around before, and she participated in the Women’s Royal Rumble this year. I thought this entire main event was great, and even if some of “NXT’s” strongest stars do get called up, the division is in more than capable hands, with Vice at the helm.

Written by Daisy Ruth

By this stage, I am fully aware that the names of events are loose guidelines. There were no Great Balls of Fire at said event, nor is there really any mania over this year’s WrestleMania, nor is the Rumble every January actually royal.

But this was “WWE NXT Revenge,” and they had been quite big on the idea of revenge, and while the show itself failed to deliver on much of that – it was still very good as a show – there was something even more peculiar about the decision to have Joe Hendry sing through his feelings.

He lost the title at Stand & Deliver after being pinned by Tony D’Angelo, and then Ethan Page got handed the rematch for his part not losing in the four-way, and decided to sing about the pair of them and the other un-loser Ricky Saints. It kills me as a fan of Joe Hendry back when he was sharing time as a wrestler and a presenter for WhatCulture Gaming, but he’s just in a rut at the moment.

Too popular to be anywhere else on the card, not chosen to be the NXT Champion, and with very little actual development on the character front. Hendry got immensely popular off the back of a really catchy song, but that cannot be all his character is, and a concert coming off the back of a title loss isn’t indicative of anything good.

The segment did at least set something in motion between Hendry and Keanu Carver, but even then, there has to be more to Carver than just showing up and hurting someone. It wasn’t an act of vengeance; it was the start of something that could be quite entertaining, but it could have been done in any other way aside from a half-baked musical performance that did nothing but undermine any sense of reality for Hendry.

Written by Max Everett