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May 18th, 2016 On commentary tonight, at Full Sail University, are Tom Phillips and Corey Graves. Opening Segment Tag Team Match: Blake & Murphy w. Alexa Bliss vs. Austin Aries & ??? Corey Graves says Blake & Murphy belong at the top of the tag team division. He and Tom Phillips speculate on who Austin Aries’ partner might be just before he enters the arena. The lights go out and it’s Shinsuke Nakamura’s music and video on the screen. The crowd cheers wildly as Nakamura struts down the ramp. It’ll be Aries and Murphy to start this tilt. Big dropkick from Aries and a 2 count pinfall. Wow. This one almost ended immediately. Drives Murphy’s head into Nakamura’s boot on the ropes. The tag is made. Nakamura puts Murphy in the corner and shakes his body while choking Murphy with the boot. Tag to Aries. Catapult up to Aries’ forearm. Then, it’s Aries with a spinning senton. Cover for a 2 count. Aries gets distracted by Blake so Murphy clotheslines him and covers him for a 1 count. Now it’s Blake on the offensive, stomping Aries in the corner. He puts him in a headlock, trying to wear him down. Aries with a boot to the head to create separation and tag in Nakamura. The major strikes begin, kicks and chops alike. Murphy just dropped from the apron; he was so scared of this guy. Exploder suplex! KINSHASA! 1-2-3. Winners: Austin Aries & Shinsuke Nakamura via pinfall in 5 minutes Post-match, Alexa Bliss stares down Blake & Murphy and leaves them to wallow in their loss. Could this be a sign of a permanent break? Blake is next to turn his back on Murphy. Maybe the whole team is breaking up? One cool point for Austin Aries’ excellent selection of one Shinsuke Nakamura. They were firmly in control of this match from the get-go. In the big picture, this match is more about the potential breakup of a long united nXt tag team. Hard to think Blake & Murphy would be as interesting or as important as separate entities. Backstage, it’s Cathy Kelley interviewing Bayley who has a big match tonight. Bayley will not be intimidated by Nia Jax. Nia can’t just bully her way into getting what she wants. She is tough but the same thing that happened in London will happen tonight. Once she’s out of the way, Bayley can focus on becoming nXt Women’s Champion again. Coming Up: nXt Takeover Update Second Segment Recap: Tom Phillips and Corey Graves introduce a special video package on nXt Women’s Champion, Asuka. Clips of her wrestling are interspersed with clips from the music video of the song that is playing. Backstage, Cathy Kelley is with No Way Jose, who is showing off his pretty good smile. He has high energy and a positive attitude. He’s going to have a fiesta and he starts to dance, making Cathy laugh. Coming Up: Nia Jax is walking in the hallway towards her match with Bayley. Third Segment Earlier today, nXt cameras recorded Carmella. She talked about how proud she is of Enzo and Big Cass. She sends her thoughts out to Enzo and says she has big dreams of succeeding right here in nXt. Singles Match: Carmella vs. Peyton Royce Corey Graves says Royce is calling herself a “venus flytrap”. She’s wearing lime green and sporting purple hair as she beats down on Carmella with kicks and punches. She chokes Carmella in the corner with her boot before bringing her down to the mat with a side headlock. Carmella fights her way to her feet before trying to pin her not once but twice to no avail. She attempts a high kick but Royce counters it and puts her face first on the mat. 2 count. Vertical suplex from Royce. She holds on and delivers a second. A third is paired with a bridge pinning attempt. Impressive stuff from the flytrap. Carmella still has some fight left in her and she evades a kick and returns with one of her own. She ducks a charge and it’s a Lou Thesz press, followed by punches. Another Thesz press. No sign of any wear and tear from Royce’s earlier moves. Carmella with a hurricanrana off the top rope. Crowd’s slowly getting into it. Broncobuster! Faceplant is seamlessly transitioned into a triangle chokehold on Royce and it doesn’t take long to tap her out. Winner: Carmella via submission in 3 minutes One cool point for Peyton Royce’s domination of the first half of this match. That girl has some impressive flexibility and it’s great seeing her try stuff like successive suplexes. One cool point for Carmella’s submission finisher. It seems like all the top ladies in nXt have got a strong submission manoeuvre in their arsenal. I think that makes them more legitimate in the ring. It’d be nice to see Carmella try to look a little winded and hurt after taking a ton of punishment. Otherwise, the match is just about practicing moves, not telling a story. Recap: We see footage from last Saturday in Portland, Oregon. Samoa Joe and Finn Balor are wrestling one another. The locker room empties, trying to keep those two apart. It shows Balor jumping the ropes to splash on Joe and a number of nXt wrestlers. Balor holds Joe’s title belt and says it’s his. On facebook live, General Manager William Regal speaks with both Joe and Balor about their match at Takeover being a definitive end to their feud. For the first time ever, the nXt championship will be defended inside a steel cage. Joe says he’ll sign first and that Balor won’t be victorious at this Takeover. Balor promises him all of this ends at Takeover with Balor becoming the first ever 2-time champion. The next nXt Takeover, live on the WWE Network, is 3 weeks away. Coming Up: Bayley vs. Nia Jax Fourth Segment Backstage, Alexa Bliss tells Blake & Murphy she wants to be more successful and she can’t win the Women’s championship with 470 pounds of dead weight on her back. So I think that makes her split from the team official. The tag team’s future is still up in the air though. Tag Team Match: Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa vs. Danny Burch & Rob Ryzin The crowd chants “Johnny Wrestling” to begin this match. And it’s Gargano and Ryzin to start things off. The two grapple and it’s Ryzin twisting the left arm of Gargano. Gargano counters and drops Ryzin to the mat with an arm twist of his own. Ryzin kips up and takes Gargano in a side headlock. Off the ropes, Ryzin pushes Gargano. Gargano with a beauty takedown, followed by a rough arm drag takedown and then, he applies an armlock. Ryzin breaks free with a knee to the gut. Burch is in and he gets a few single armdrag takedowns for his efforts. Ciampa tags in. He and Gargano succeed in a combination of a leg sweep and a jumping elbow drop. Ciampa drives Burch into the corner but Burch fights back briefly. Ciampa sends Burch off the ropes and ducks down, but Burch sets him up for a suplex. Ciampa reverses it into a suplex of his own! Burch pushes Ciampa away and gets a boot to the face. Ciampa clotheslines him down for a 1 count. Uppercuts precede chops. Burch takes offense to that and drives Ciampa into his corner. He tags in Ryzin and the two prepare for a double team manoeuvre but Ciampa kicks them both. He tags in Gargano and it’s Gargano chucking Ryzin to the mat. Spear through the ropes on Ryzin after kicking Burch to the ground outside the ring. Double running knees to the head of Ryzin in the corner and, then, again in the middle of the ring. It’s Gargano who pins the fallen Ryzin for the win. Winner: Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa via pinfall in 4 minutes One cool point for Gargano & Ciampa who, since rejoining forces, have been quietly proving themselves as dangerous and cheerworthy in the ring. Fans are on their side and if the Dusty Rhodes tag classic pops up again this summer, they may very well be a dark horse candidate to win. Backstage, GM Regal is in his office. He formerly congratulates Enzo & Big Cass and the Vaudevillains for showing off the quality of the nXt Tag Team division. He announces that American Alpha and The Revival will, indeed, fight one another at Takeover for the Tag Team Championships. Up Next: Bayley vs. Nia Jax Final Segment Singles Match: Bayley vs. Nia Jax The main event matchup is here! The two foes lock up and it’s Nia Jax throwing Bayley to the mat. Bayley regroups and holds Nia from behind but she’s thrown to the mat again. On the third go-around, Bayley twists the left arm of Nia and pulls hard on it a few times. Nia sends Bayley off the ropes. Bayley ducks Nia’s clothesline attempts twice before jumping on to Nia’s back and going for a sleeper hold. Nia flips Bayley over her back to break the hold. Bayley applies a side headlock and Nia lifts her up but Bayley won’t let go. Nia lifts her again but Bayley doggedly holds on...until the third slam. Nia gets a 1 count out of that one. In the corner, Nia with a shoulder thrust on Bayley’s midsection. She takes her time before the next move and, though Bayley fights back, it doesn’t stop Nia from giving her a second shoulder thrust. That’s followed by a powerslam. Nia pushes Bayley between the ropes and hits her on the back of the head before spearing her in the corner again. She whips her into the opposite turnbuckle but Bayley springs up and over the charging Nia Jax to let loose with some punches. Nothing doing though and Nia slams her down and gets a 2 count. Nia’s had an answer for everything Bayley’s done so far. Bayley drives Nia’s head into the top turnbuckle repeatedly and tries to bring her to the opposite corner but Nia counters it and chucks her into the turnbuckle instead as... we go to commercial. When we return, Nia is still in control, even when Bayley punches back, Nia responds with a shoulderbreaker and a 2 count pinfall attempt. Nia puts Bayley’s left arm behind her own back and slams her into the turnbuckle repeatedly. As Bayley lies on the mat, she steps on that left arm, continuing to isolate it. Bayley’s still fighting back but Nia responds with a vicious headbutt and then a kick to the kidneys. The referee checks in with Bayley if she can continue, as Bayley struggles to get to her feet. Nia helps her out and applies a type of sleeper hold. Bayley’s weakening until she tries to punch back, to which Nia clotheslines her hard to the mat for another 2 count. Nia drags Bayley up to her feet by her hair. Another shoulder thrust in the corner is followed by a renewed submission attempt, trapping Bayley’s left arm behind her back in a bearhug. Bayley breaks it by a guillotine attempt. Sunset flip from Bayley but she can’t pull Nia Jax down. She does kick Nia into the corner and starts driving her whole body into Nia. Now she delivers kicks to the knee and two dropkicks bring Nia down briefly. Nia charges at Bayley but Bayley evades it and sends Nia through the ropes to the outside. As Nia collects her breath, Bayley tries to land a dropkick but Nia catches her and threatens a powerbomb. Bayley escapes it, runs off the apron and executes a hurricanrana to the outside! Bayley climbs to the top rope, beckons Nia Jax as she enters in the ring and connects with a crossbody for a 2 count. Nia throws Bayley right off of her, sending the former champ flying towards the corner. Spinebuster by Nia Jax results in a 2 count. Nia charges the corner but hits the post with her shoulder. Bayley applies the guillotine hold but she can’t quite lock both hands together. She brings Nia down to one knee briefly, but Nia flips Bayley up into an upside-down vertical suplex position, from which Bayley escapes to deliver a DDT! 1-2-...Nia kicks out... Both women struggle to get to their feet and Bayley is taking a longer amount of time as the referee checks on her. Bayley’s holding her left knee. She uses the ropes to get up and Nia clobbers her back to the mat. Nia yanks that left knee and leg drops it. Another leg drop, this time to the head. 1-2-3. Nia Jax wins! Winner: Nia Jax via pinfall in 10 minutes Post-match, we see the replay of where Bayley tweaked the left knee and where she almost won the match. Then, we see the finish where Nia Jax won. A trainer checks on Bayley as Nia Jax jaws at the crowd. Two cool points for Nia Jax’s major victory over Bayley. That firmly establishes her as the #1 contender to Asuka’s women’s championship as far as I’m concerned. Just a matter of time before we see that match. She had an answer for everything that Bayley tried to do. One cool point for Bayley’s tenacity in enduring the beatdown she received from Nia. It was a fairly one-sided affair, even though Bayley did get a few good moves in. She kicked out, over and over, and cemented her underdog, always fight back attitude. That’s good for the kids to see. Looking forward to your thoughts and cool point suggestions on tonight’s episode. Peace!
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