NXT returns tonight from Full Sail University with another episode if their now live 2-hour weekly program.
- Tommaso Ciampa vs. Angel Garza
- Dominik Dijakovic vs. Keith Lee
- Pete Dunne vs. Damien Preist
- Tegan Nox returns
As per usual, here are our five questions about NXT tonight:
1) How will Tommaso Ciampa look?
This will be the first time Tommaso Ciampa steps into a ring since his spinal fusion surgery earlier this year. It won’t just be the first on TV. He hasn’t worked any house shows to get ready in front of a crowd. This is legit his first match back.
No doubt he’s been putting in a ton of hours in the Performance Center. But wrestlers have said that nothing replaces actually working a real match when it comes to returning. Ciampa is a great wrestler, but a little ring rust can be expected. He’s going against someone very good in Angel Garza, which should certainly help.
Even if he has to knock off a little rust, it’ll be great to see the Blackheart back in an NXT ring.
2) What’s Tegan Nox’s place in NXT?
Speaking of coming back from a huge injury, Tegan Nox will be her first NXT match since her heartbreaking injury at the Mae Young Classic last year. (It was actually our first returnee Tommaso Ciampa who comforted her right after it happened.)
Unlike Ciampa, Tegan has been working some house shows and has had a couple NXT UK matches. In fact, it looked like she was going to primarily be on NXT UK given that’s where she returned to TV. But then when NXT moved to USA, they started advertising her return.
We’ve gotten a couple video packages hyping her already so clearly they think there’s a big role in the women’s division for her. There was rumor that she was going to go deep in the Mae Young Classic last year, if not win it all, so they’re overall high on her. Clearly they think there’s a place for her on a 2-hour version of NXT. (And she has a tag team partner there in Dakota Kai if they ever want to have the NXT tag titles defended in NXT like original promised.)
3) What’s the end game of Lee/Dijakovic?
Keith Lee and Dominik Dijakovic’s rubber match tonight will be our main event. They’ve had some pretty heavy hitting matches, which have been entertaining, but it feels like this needs to lay out a path for not just the winner but the loser.
If I had to guess, Dijakovic wins and Keith loses. It felt for awhile that Keith losing was going to lead to him snapping. Ending with that as a main event angle would be exciting. (NXT hasn’t had any big angles to close shows lately and this would be a good one.)
Dijakovic could be the man who takes the loss, but the story seems like it was already there for Keith Lee.
4) Are they ready to push Priest to the next level?
Damien Priest vs. Pete Dunne should give us a good idea of where they think Priest fits in. Pete Dunne is a former long standing NXT UK champion and always booked well. So a win over the Bruiserweight is significant.
If he picks up a win here, I’d expect Priest in a title picture sooner than later. Maybe not the NXT title as that’s very crowded, but the North American scene could be a spot for him. (The same should be said for the winner of Lee/Dijakovic.)
If he loses, then they’re not ready for him to rise up any quicker.
It’s also possible this ends in a way that it becomes a longer feud to keep both guys a bit more protected a bit longer.
5) What’s next for Imperium?
Last week, WALTER bested Kushida in a very entertaining main event match. It was a clean, albeit hard fought win, with no post-match angle to tease more to come.
It had been my assumption that Imperium would be the team to step into WarGames next month to free up Undisputed to defend their titles. (This is in contrast to my colleague Sean Rueter, who thought the obvious angle was Undisputed defending all of their titles in one WarGames match.)
If I’m right, that means we need more aggression from WALTER & CO. to set up that match. If Sean is right, then maybe this is it from Imperium? Maybe that was an angle to entice some fans to tune in to the first few shows before moving on to something else?
With two hours, my bet is that despite the WarGames plan, Imperium sticks around to do something here and there as they have two-hours to fill. We’ll see tonight if they’re represented on the program in one way or another.
We’ll see if we get any answers to these questions tonight at 8 PM ET on USA.