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WWE NXT Tampa at CDC Center
April 20, 2019
Attendance- 375
Albert Hardie Jr. (ACH) defeated Boa (Yanbo Wang) with Mars Wang (Wang Xiaolong)
This was a fantastic opening match with a very hot crowd that was into the show throughout the night even through some very weird segments that occurred during this event. This most likely had to do with the holiday weekend with Easter the next day but also due to another holiday that Matt Riddle announced he was celebrating on Twitter. He was not on this card so I will let you make your own assumptions as to why. Now back to this match, both wrestlers looked great and the match blew away my expectations for it. I do not know if Albert Hardie Jr. (ACH) made Boa look great or if Boa has drastically improved but my opinion is that it is both. Mars Wang, who has tried many different gimmicks on the loop including one where he was a rapper obsessed with gold but tonight he reached back in time to utilize Great Muta like face paint (my friend that I went with stated that his face paint looked more like a Native American’s warpaint than Muta’s) which was red and white while he wore modern urban clothing. Mars acted like an angry wild man throughout the match at ringside trying to interfere many times with a very low success rate. When he was successful at interference, Boa was able to hit some tremendous kicks and chops that looked quite stiff and Hardie sold his moves effectively throughout the match. Hardie was incredible in this match through his reversals and aerial attacks, his performance tonight has changed my mind on just how good he can be. The match went back and forth but Hardie was able to make a final comeback with several running forearms and an awesome looking deadlift delayed German Suplex. After the match, ACH seemed extraordinarily happy that he won the match, not anything over the top but just a very happy, surprised look on his face almost like he was surprised he beat his opponent. Regardless, this was a fantastic match that really got the crowd into the show.
Erik of The Viking Experience defeated Luke Menzies.
Luke Menzies came out in his old time gangster gimmick with fedora, coat and wooden club. Then the War Raiders, excuse me Viking Experience music hit and the crowd popped loud for them. They came out to their normal routine but when their new name was announced, the crowd booed for a solid ten seconds before then going back to chanting “War! War! War!” which Erik (Rowe) definitely helped instigate throughout the entire match. The ref made Ivar (Hanson) go to the back due to a complaint by Luke which gave him a cheap shot opening and surprisingly, he got a lot of offense in during this match which ended up being competitive and a fun watch. At one point, some points starting sarcastically chanting “Viking Experience” which led to a hearty laugh from the crowd and even Erik had to hide his face in laughter. This is the first time I have ever seen a crowd make a wrestler pop and laugh. Which gets to the heart of all of this, which is that you have an awesome, talented tag team that is over big in NXT and now they have a ridiculous name which makes it a lot tougher to have a chance to do so on the main roster. While this match was competitive with Menzies looking much improved since the last time he wrestled in the Bay Area, Erik won with his knee strike. Ivar then came out and they celebrated together by chanting war with the crowd. It was strange but great.
Kacy Catanzaro and Lacy Lane defeated Marina Shafir and Jessalyn Duke
This was a great match that made the show seem like it was going to be another classic held on the Florida Loop only for things to get really weird later in the show. Lane came out first to a good reaction from the crowd that was nothing compared to the pop Kacy got when she came out. Kacy is over with the Loop crowds to a high degree mainly due to the amazing moves she pulled off. Then Shafir and Duke came out to a loud reaction of boos from the audience which is a good thing for them as heels since they did not have “go away” heat. This was a good tag match where Kacy was the star and she pulled off some incredible moves and reversals. Shafir and Duke both looked a lot better than I have seen in the past, especially Shafir who seems to have figured a lot out. This match went back and forth until the babyfaces made a vicious comeback with Catanzaro hitting a corkscrew spinning Code Breaker for the win.
Shane Thorne defeated Jeet Rama
Another solid match and you might be wondering when the weird is coming, do not worry, it is coming up. Shane Thorne came out to a mild heel reaction that would steadily increase throughout the match but he borrowed a lot of his heel antics from Atsushi Onita. Thorne sat in a chair pretty much pulled out from under underneath a very large security guard and then sat down in a nonchalant fashion before, during and after the match. His carefree yet nasty heel attitude also reminded me of Onita and he only needed some barbwire and a cigarette for the whole package. I feel bad for Thorne since Miller left which ended TM-61 but Thorne does have talent, charisma and the ability to develop into a strong heel if given the opportunity. Then Jeet Rama came out which popped the crowd and the “JEET! JEET! JEET!” chants started. While he is quietly becoming a very strong technical mat wrestler, I cannot figure out why he is so over with the local Florida Loop crowds. It could be his impressive hip tosses, judo throws and monkey flips but that is just a guess. Jeet controlled a good portion of this match with Thorne having to run away or cheat several times to stop Jeet’s technical barrage. Thorne won in the end with an impressive modified Crossface Chickenwing to make Jeet tap out. My friend I attended with is a Special Forces veteran who stated that, “You are done if that is ever put on you in real life but good luck trying to actually do it.” Just thought that a former Special Forces vet being impressed with a pro wrestling submission was cool. After the match, the crowd cheered for Jeet who then thanked them by bowing to them. Someone in the office has to see how over he is on the Loop.
Brennan Williams and Mansoor Al-Shehail defeated 3.0.
This was the weird. I was talking about and it started when Brennan Williams, who is no longer using that ridiculous “Sit!” gimmick but is still acting effeminate, came out with Mansoor Al-Shehail which is a very strange pairing. They were in sync as a team though even with their entrance that had a choreographed pose at the end. While these two teaming up and a great heel becoming part of a babyface tag team along with the former effeminate Jimi Hendrix was strange, more stranger things were coming with their opponents. The opponents were the 1995 Hardy Boys in orange and black. During their entrance one of them stood on the turnbuckle while the other got up on the same turnbuckle directly behind his tag partner who turned his head around and they kissed. This got a very confused reaction from the crowd who did not know how to handle it. They were definitely trying to get heat with that but it just ended up being a WTF moment. The match started with a 5-minute strange comedy spot where both teams argued over who would start off in the ring which then escalated into a weird war of words.
When the match finally started, it was not that bad and surprisingly, Williams and Mansoor were great together as a team hitting some spectacular double team moves. The match ended when Williams chokeslammed Mansoor, who flipped himself over to land an assisted moonsault for the win. After they won, some strange metal music hit and out stormed Dan Matha and Riddick Moss who cleaned house. They decimated both teams and launched a member of 3.0 out of the ring onto all of the other wrestlers who then fled to the back.
Levi Strauss (Robbie E) then came out and cut a promo on how Matha and Moss were now his stable of monsters named the OUTLIERS! He then stated that the Outliers will dominate the NXT Tag Team division like they dominated these teams tonight. This run-in got a mixed reaction from the crowd due to some of them not really liking either tag team in this match and seeing both teams annihilated by big, tough guys. This whole ordeal came off as very weird.
Street Profits defeated Saurav Gurjar & Rinku Singh (Million Dollar Arm)
This was a good match where the Street Profits made Gurjar and Rinku look like strong powerful heels but they were missing something. That something was their former awesome heat seeking manager who was in a weird match just before this weird, slightly racist one. It seems that Rinku and Gurjar are going for the Temple of Doom evil Indian gimmick which did get some good old fashion let’s hate the foreigners heat from the crowd. They did look powerful in this match and controlled most of it surprisingly against the Street Profits which inspired the crowd to chant “USA!” and then “Easter!” at them. The Street Profits were able to make a diversion and sneak a school boy roll-up for the surprise win that popped the crowd which continued to chant Easter at the foreign heels with the Street Profits joining along. This was also weird but in a “is this racist?” kind of way.
Shayna Baszler defeated Jessie
Jessie came out to a good reaction from the crowd and Shayna got a big pop from the crowd that would later boo her during the match that I thought should go 5 seconds but it was competitive. Jessie has continuously improved even with her nerdy Bayley gimmick and was over with the crowd especially when she was able to fight back against Shayna. Jessie even got some near falls which shows that someone is trying to make her look strong to see how the locals would react. The crowd was behind Jesse so this might have worked but she did lose when Shayna was able to slap on her sleeper submission hold to make Jessie tap out. Shayna did sell very well for Jessie during this match which impressed me personally.
Main Event
Keith Lee and KUSHIDA versus Undisputed Era (O’Reilly and Fish)
Keith Lee came out to a nice pop from the crowd but the crowd surprisingly popped louder for KUSHIDA when he came out to tag with Lee. He had his full Back to the Future gear on and seems to be using the same gimmick he had in NJPW. Maybe he will be called the Back to the Future Experience soon. Their opponents, the Undisputed Era’s O’Reilly and Fish then came out to start a great main event. The match started with KUSHIDA and Lee taking control and hitting some big moves but the Undisputed Era cut them off to take a control. They employed old school tag team tactics by cutting the ring in half and beating down KUSHIDA that built to a very hot tag that KUSHIDA was able to hit by leaping over an opponent. Keith Lee than ran wild but was cutoff and beat down by both members of the Undisputed Era. While Lee was able to make small comebacks, he would be continuously cut-off until KUSHIDA, now recovered, was able to tag back in by tagging the back of Lee who the UE threw into the ropes a little too closely to KUSHIDA. This evened the fight which led Lee and KUSHIDA to take the upper hand and gain the victory when KUSHIDA applied his Kimura submission finisher, the Hoverboard Lock. This was a great, non-weird match that needed to happen to make this another good Florida Loop show. KUSHIDA is awesome live.
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