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November 16th, 2016 On commentary tonight, at Full Sail University, are Tom Phillips and Corey Graves. Opening Segment Singles Match: Liv Morgan vs. Peyton Royce w. Billie Kay Remember last month, Morgan cost Kay a win over Aliyah and got double teamed for her efforts. Consider this the grudge match. Morgan is first to the mat after she and Royce exchange punches. Royce clubs her on the back and kicks her around a bit. Headbutt sends Morgan down again. Tossed out on to the apron, Royce traps her in a unique submission using the ropes, pulling Morgan’s arms back as her leg was wrapped behind Morgan’s neck. Quite the body contortion there. It doesn’t affect Morgan for long as she exchanges punches with Royce mid-ring. She evades Royce’s follow-up in the corner, then slides under her legs for a roll-up. 1-2 kickout by Royce. 2 clotheslines from Morgan, then a dropkick. Bulldog. She’s fired up. Morgan punches Kay off of the apron then engages Royce in a front-flipping guillotine chokehold. Royce is struggling and it looks like she’ll tap soon, but Kay disrupts the hold and causes the referee to call for the bell. Morgan fights off Kay with punches and stomps, until Royce clubs her from behind. The two girls stomp down on Morgan until Aliyah runs down the ramp to support Morgan. She’s quickly shown Billie Kay’s knee…face first. Then, Royce slams her into the digital display at ringside. As for Morgan, they’re about to double team her in the ring when Ember Moon’s music hits. She rushes down to the ring and connects with a springboard splash on both of them. We then get tumbling high knees from Moon on Royce and then Kay. Morgan and Moon connect with high dropkicks on each woman to clear them from the ring. Aliyah rejoins the girls in the ring and perhaps we’ll see a multi-woman tag match in the near future as the nXt Women’s Division takes sides. Winner: Liv Morgan via disqualification in 4 minutes One cool point for all the ladies who are slowly building up a decent feud in the women’s division. We’re still not seeing much promo time but with the match time they’re getting, we can clearly see two teams forming. Ember Moon’s addition to this feud will ensure she gets more TV time. It also ensures she will be seen as the difference maker amongst the 5 women. The more she can be established as a superior athlete and wrestler, the sooner Asuka will take notice of her. Many of the comments about Asuka’s future opponents cite Ember Moon as the proposed #1 contender. That may happen before year’s end. Recap: The beginning of the feud between Andrade “Cien” Almas and Cedric Alexander is shown. That dispute will hopefully be resolved in tonight’s main event. Second Segment “Devil’s Calling” by Parkway Drive is one of the official nXt Takeover: Toronto theme songs. Recap: nXt General Manager William Regal narrates the beginning of a promo video for the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, its origins and the decision to run a second edition this year. We get a brief look at each round of action thus far, concluding with the semi-final matches from last week. The finals will take place at Takeover: Toronto between the Authors Of Pain and TM-61. The Return that has been hyped up is now. It’s “The Drifter” Elias Samson with his guitar, sitting on a stool on the stage. He narrates his return while strumming his guitar…”what it is is what I am” he sings. The crowd is not super impressed but he is receiving a few cheers. Corey Graves puts him down hard for being a terrible musician, stating that although the music died in 1959, Samson has dug it up and desecrated it tonight. Singles Match: Elias Samson vs. Nathan Cruz The two lock up. Samson pushes Cruz to the corner. They reset and it’s Samson with a wrist lock. He picks up Cruz and slams him down on the mat, while holding on to that wrist. Cruz replies with a rollup pinning attempt and an armlock. Samson breaks free of the hold, by the ropes, and turns up the intensity level with his kicks. He shrieks in the ring and leads Cruz to the apron. Running high knee to the head of Cruz. Jumping elbow drop and a cover…but Samson lifts Cruz’s head before the 3 count can be made. Cruz tries to fight back, fending off Samson with a kick to the chest. He picks up Samson on to his shoulders but Samson counters it with a kidney shot and a spinning face-first neckbreaker. 1-2-3. Winner: Elias Samson via pinfall in 2 minutes One cool point for Samson’s finisher which is one of the nastiest in nXt today. Minus one cool point for the dreadful guitar playing and singing Samson shared with us before the match. He’s better than that…but maybe he did it on purpose to get under our skin? Backstage, Aliyah, Liv Morgan and Ember Moon have their hands around each other’s shoulders. Ember Moon reveals that her path became theirs when Kay and Royce beat up on Morgan and Aliyah tonight. Morgan insults Royce for being a bad Batman knockoff of Poison Ivy and Kay for looking like Olive Oil…Popeye’s Olive Oil. She challenges them to find a third teammate and then find us for a match. Called it! Third Segment Promo: A video of the feud between nXt Tag Team Champions The Revival and Gargano & Ciampa is shown. Special attention is given to their match at Takeover: Brooklyn II. The name change of Gargano & Ciampa to Team #DIY is made official, just like their halted progress in this year’s Dusty Classic. This just in, their tag team championship match, at Takeover: Toronto, will be a best 2 out of 3 falls match. “Hated” by Beartooth is one of the official nXt Takeover: Toronto theme songs. Promo: A lookback on the feud that has developed between Dusty Classic tag partners Bobby Roode and “The Perfect 10” Tye Dillinger Up Next: Cien vs. Cedric Alexander Final Segments “Come Back For More” by Turnstile is the third nXt Takeover: Toronto theme song. Singles Match: Andrade “Cien” Almas vs. Cedric Alexander Wow, Almas gets some sparkler pyro tonight on the ramp as he poses. Pretty special. Almas avoids Alexander in the ropes a few times to stall the starting of the match. The referee breaks up the two men and this is when Almas wrenches Alexander into a side headlock. Alexander pushes him off the ropes to break the hold. Alexander counters out of it. Almas is whipped into the ropes and slides along the mat in a lounge chair pose. Pretty arrogant move. Almas grabs the ropes to evade further punishment from Alexander. This allows him to catch his breath and attack Alexander first, with punches.to the back of the head. He whips Alexander into the corner. Alexander evades it and follows up with a head scissors takedown and a dropkick. Almas is sent into the corner and he wants more punishment. Alexander obliges with slops to the chest. He stomps Almas down to the mat. The exchange continues with Alexander whipping Almas towards the ropes but Almas slides underneath them and beckons Alexander. Alexander obliges with a jumping dropkick to Almas’ blame game. Alexander rolls Almas back in. Jumping stomp on Almas’ face. Alexander gets a 1 count pinning attempt. Alexander bounces off the ropes and straight into Almas’ jumping dropkick. Ouch. Almas stomps Alexander in the corner, feigns a running move just to stop and slap Alexander across the place. Alexander is pissed and he chops back viciously. He brings the forearms to Almas in the corner and the referee breaks it up. Whip is reversed by Almas who gets a boot to the face from Alexander. Alexander leaps off the ropes straight into Almas’ high dropkick! The referee tends to Alexander as… We go to commercial. On the return, Almas is laying into Alexander with knees and running kicks. Pinfall attempt! 1-2- kickout by Alexander. Almas chokes Alexander underneath the middle rope but the count is broken by the referee. Almas with another running soccer kick to the face. He covers Alexander for a 2 count. This one appears to be all Almas. Bridging underhook suplex into a 2 count pinfall attempt. Alexander’s in trouble now as Almas bends back his right shoulder as the crowd cheers. Alexander punches his way out of it but it hurts him. Then it’s Almas applying a very similar submission to Liv Morgan’s earlier. Ref breaks it up and then has to count to 2 for another pinfall attempt. Shortly thereafter, Almas pins Alexander again but Alexander lifts his leg on to the bottom rope to break the count. Almas goes for a running kick again but Alexander trips him with a kick to the shin. Now it’s Alexander with the running kicks and a handspring, bounce off the ropes enziguri which knocks Almas to the outside. Alexander gets HUGE air with a front flip splash to the outside on Almas. He rolls Almas in quickly. Top rope clothesline for a 2 count. Rolling senton by Alexander. He misses the moonsault, lands on his feet but gets rolled up by Almas. Then, Almas lifts Alexander up for a power slam and a very close 2 count. Almas stomps on Alexander repeatedly in the corner. He runs from the opposite corner and it’s a sudden Lumbar Check from Alexander!! He tries to drag Almas to the middle of the ring for a pinfall but Almas holds on to the rope hard. Alexander approaches him but gets a low blow from the middle rope which Almas sprung his way. This stuns Winner: Andrade “Cien” Almas via pinfall in 12 minutes The show closes with a promo for the nXt Championship rematch between Shinsuke Nakamura (c) and Samoa Joe. One cool point for the dominance which Almas showed in this match. In my view, there wasn’t truly a moment in this match where his victory was in doubt, despite some neat high-flying moves from Alexander. Alexander didn’t do enough to win and we’re not likely to see him too much on nXt with a new cruiserweight show starting on Tuesday nights in 2 weeks. Maybe it was just me but this match didn’t have a main event feel to me. Was it the crowd who didn’t get involved enough? Or was it just my tired eyes not seeing a good match for what it was? Looking forward to your cool point suggestions and comments on tonight’s episode. Early predictions on Takeover: Toronto are welcome, too. Here are mine: Authors Of Pain to win the Dusty Classic over TM-61 Shinsuke Nakumura to retain the nXt Championship over Samoa Joe #DIY to defeat The Revival for the nXt Tag Team Championships Asuka to retain the nXt Women’s Championship over Mickie James Bobby Roode over Tye Dillinger Peace!
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