The Big News: Sami Zayn returned after shoulder surgery.
The Medium News: The London crowd loved Sami Zayn and Chad Gable. Oh and Jason Jordan got some love just because he was Gable’s partner.
The Little Beaver Sized News: The fans didn’t love anyone else.
*****
Jason Jordan & Chad Gable won a Fatal 4-Way Match over The Vaudevillians, The Hype Bros and Blake & Murphy
We are still in London and are kicking things off with 4-way tag team action featuring 2 sets of former Tag Team Champions. The Vaudevillians came out as Sherlock Holmes and Watson and played up as babyfaces despite turning heel just a few weeks ago. The fans liked the Vaudevillians, but they absolutely loved Jordan & Gable. They liked the Hype Bros…until Mojo blind tagged himself in, which made Gable go to the apron.
We had a series where everyone came in, one at a time, to throw someone out of the ring and that led to an 8-way standoff. Gable ended up being in the match for the majority of it as the fans would just chant for Gable anytime he tagged out. At one point Gable went for the hot tag and in the Perfect Timing Department, just as he dove for the tag, Jordan got yanked off the apron.
Jordan did get his hot tag and we got an 8-way free for all. After depositing the other 5 on the outside, Gable pinned Blake with their move where Jordan threw him into the air and Gable caught him with a bridging back suplex.
– Last week, Emma was being worked on after her match with Asuka. Dana was complaining about what she would do to Asuka when Asuka walked in. Asuka mocked Dana by patting her on the head and then doing the Emma dance. Dana waited until Asuka left to state that this wasn’t over.
– We got a video package for the entire UK tour.
-Tye Dillinger is a heel this week. Maybe he’s always a heel, but he never comes across that way. Anyway he is going to show Sami Zayn why he is the Perfect 10.
– The Drifter Elias Sampson is still on his way. This time he is literally walking on railroad tracks. Maybe Nia Jax would have gotten to NXT quicker than 9 weeks if she walked on the train tracks.
– Next week is Best of NXT 2015 Part 1. Well these next two weeks are going to be skippable fun.
– Baron Corbin is happy he beat Apollo Crews last week. He declared himself the #1 Contender and uncrowned NXT Champion.
The Drifter Elias Sampson defeated The Svelte Bull Dempsey
Bull Dempsey has a new theme song. He still has his Dr. Death Steve Williams/Michael Elgin robe and he now weighs in at 299 ¾ pounds, which was completely ignored by the announcers. You know, I was only joking when I called Elias Sampson “The Drifter”, well now it’s his actual nickname.
Corey Graves made reference to Big Daddy Shirley Crabtree and Bull did jumping jacks before the match started. The WWE production team did an exceptional amount of cuts and zooming during this match, which gave me a headache.
The crowd was dead for 99% of it, just when they started making noise Elias put his finger to his lips to ask them to be quiet. Talk about bad timing. Anyway he won with the Diving Elbow Drop. It looked pretty good.
Elias pretended to play guitar in tune to his theme song and literally no one cared.
– Dash & Dawson were happy to retain the straps. They called Enzo & Cass were one of the best tag teams in the world, but gleefully pointed out that they were the best, before wishing the Jersey Boys a Happy Holidays. That was nice of them after they broke Colin’s leg.
Sami Zayn pinned Tye Dillinger
Sami Zayn was last seen at NXT Takeover: Unstoppable in May, where his match with then-NXT Champion Kevin Owens ended in a ref stoppage when he was given the Pop Up Power Bomb on the ring apron. Of course he was injured trying to psych the fans up before his match with John Cena. I am not sure if that was a worse injury than Randy Orton getting injured taking the garbage out.
I missed a lot about Sami, even his theme song, which is weird since I bought it off iTunes a year ago, so I could have listened to it at literally any time. The fans sang Sami’s theme song, which in case you forget, is completely instrumental.
The fans went absolutely nuts for Zayn’s entrance, but settled down when Tye took over. This was actually taped after the Takeover show last week, which is pretty weird. Let it be known that in 2015 Tye Dillinger’s match was after Finn Balor and Samoa Joe’s match.
RANDOM TRIVIA: If you think Tye Dillinger’s match going after Finn vs Joe was weird, in 1989 during the classic Flair-Steamboat series, the two of them never finished a show. At Chi-Town Rumble, for some strange reason, WCW did a Kendall Windham-Steve Casey match that went 25 minutes and not even Dave Meltzer stuck around for. (WCW officials simply forgot they were still wrestling and never gave them the cue to go home) At Clash of the Champions VI they then taped Sting vs Rip Morgan and Lex Luger vs Jack Victory. Finally at WrestleWar 89 they had Road Warriors vs Mike Rotunda/o & Steve Williams AND Eddie Gilbert & Rick Steiner vs Kevin Sullivan & Dan Spivey.
Suddenly Tye Dillinger isn’t such a bad way to close the show.
No one cared about 99% of what Tye did. The only thing they got excited for was a Dillinger Superkick that they bought as a finish. Other than that they only cared for Sami. Zayn hit all of his moves, including the Blue Thunder Bomb and the t-bone suplex into the corner, before winning with the Helluva Kick.
After the match, Sami took the mic and very happily proclaimed he was back. Sami stated that he has had a series of disappointments in 2015, between losing the title to Kevin Owens and injuring himself vs Sami Zayn, but the trend is broken tonight. Sami put over the crowd, saying more and more great things will happen with NXT in 2016. He finished things off by promising that he will have a great 2016.
That does it for this week. I hope everyone has an excellent Christmas and we’ll see you again next week. Until then, make sure to say your vitamins and take your prayers!