Following a brief hiatus due to Christmas day and New Year’s Day falling on Wednesday, NXT is back with its regularly scheduled programming.
The show starts with NXT Women’s champion Rhea Ripley coming out to address the crowd. Ripley gets a great response from the fans and a nice “You deserve it” chant. She talks about winning the title but doesn’t get too far into her speech before she is interrupted by Toni Storm.
Storm says she is proud of Ripley’s accomplishment, but reminds her that she beat her, twice. Storm says that after she regains the NXT UK Women’s Title at TakeOver: Blackpool II this Sunday, she wants to challenge Ripley to a champion vs. champion match at World’s Collide.
Ripley accepts but just then, NXT UK Women’s champ Kay Lee Ray comes to the ring. This leads to Io Shirai and Bianca Belair also interrupting before Candice LeRae comes out and suddenly, we have an impromptu six-woman tag!
Six-Woman Tag Team Match: Rhea Ripley, Toni Storm and Candice LeRae defeat Bianca Belair, Kay Lee Ray and Io Shirai when Ripley pins Belair following the “Riptide”.
After the match, LeRae goes to had Ripley her belt but takes a moment to get a good look at it herself as Storm looks on. Ripley has definitely gone from hunter to hunted.
A vignette airs with Tommaso Ciampa talking about how being NXT champion for 238 days was the best 238 days of his life. Then he broke his neck and though he is the greatest NXT champion ever, he has had to sit back and watch Adam Cole as a champion. He warns Cole that soon, he will “get his life back”.
In a short backstage segment, Keith Lee says despite pinning multiple former champions, he is still being overlooked. He promises that will change in 2020.
Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic-First Round: The Imperium (Aichner and Barthel) defeat The Forgotten Sons via pinfall.
The Imperium got the win in the opening bout in the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic when Fabian Aichner pinned Wesley Blake following the “European Bomb” by the Imperium.
According to the bracket, The Imperium will face the winners of the match between the team of Matt Riddle and Pete Dunne and the team of Flash Morgan Webster and Mark Andrews.
Cathy Kelley interviews Riddle and asks him how the team of he and Dunne was formed. Riddle simplifies it by saying in the spirit of Dusty, he feels they can be a solid team, so he just asked him and the “Broserweights” were formed.
"I'm a bro. You're a Bruiserweight. Dusty Cup. Let's do this."
… and that's the story of how the #Broserweights were born for the 2020 #DustyClassic. @SuperKingofBros @PeteDunneYxB pic.twitter.com/KZ7Pg8H4wq
— WWE NXT (@WWENXT) January 9, 2020
Austin Theory defeats Joaquin Wilde by pinfall.
Short match, but a nice showcase for the young Theory.
Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic-First Round: Undisputed Era (Fish & O’Reilly) defeat Gallus by pinfall.
Undisputed Era was able to eliminate the NXT UK Tag Team champions from the tournament when Adam Cole was able to interject himself into the match while the referee had his back turned, kicking Wolfgang in the head. That allowed Fish and O’Reilly to hit their High-Low combination finisher on him to get the victory.
In the first round, Kushida and his mystery partner will battle the Grizzled Young Veterans. The winner of that match will face Undisputed Era in the semi-finals.
Johnny Gargano comes out with a microphone and says he has been waiting for a long time to come out and address Finn Balor. Gargano acknowledges that Balor had a big hand in helping build the NXT brand but once he left, he left it in the hands of guys like him. Gargano says that he and the fans behind him launched NXT into “outer space” and that NXT has become what it is now without Balor.
Balor comes out and congratulates Gargano for a great promo but says that if he can make it as far as TakeOver:Portland, he’ll get his wish of a match against him.
Mia Yim defeats Kayden Carter via pinfall.
This was a good, competitive match and Carter had a solid showing. Yim caught her with a knee to the face when she tried to jump off the top rope on her for the win. After the match, Yim went to show Carter some respect but Chelsea Green hit the ring and attacked both women.
Robert Stone then came out and announced that he has signed Green to his brand and brought her to NXT as the industry’s “hottest free agent”.
👀👀👀👀#WWENXT @ImChelseaGreen @RobertStoneWWE pic.twitter.com/tPbH0raITl
— WWE NXT (@WWENXT) January 9, 2020
It is announced that Kushida’s mystery partner will be none other than Alex Shelley! They will reform the Timesplitters in the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic.
Another vignette is shown of Ciampa addressing Cole and says that even though he has taken the NXT Title to heights he’s not even sure he could have, his reign as NXT champion will be tainted until he beats him.
It is announced that on next week’s NXT, there will be a women’s battle royale to determine a number one contender for the NXT Women’s title and will get that shot at TakeOver: Portland.
Number 1 contender’s match for NXT North American Title: Keith Lee becomes number one contender after defeating Cameron Grimes, Dominik Dijakovic and Damian Priest.
Lee pinned Grimes after hitting him with the “Spirit Bomb” while both Dijakovic and Priest were outside the ring.
In two weeks, Lee will challenge Roderick Strong for the North American Title.
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