WWE NXT 8/08/2023: 3 Things We Hated And 3 Things We Loved

Welcome back to Wrestling Inc.'s occasionally weekly review of "WWE NXT!" We missed last week due to sudden illness — don't worry, we're at least marginally caught up on what happened — but now we're back to talk about what is certainly not the best televised wrestling show of 2023, but absolutely provides the most dumb fun. And between another Dominik Mysterio North American title defense, a planned match between Bron Breakker and Von Wagner, and a showdown between Trick Williams and Ilja Dragunov, we had a lot to look forward to.

Now, did "NXT" meet expectations this week? That's another question, and as usual, the answer is that some of it did and some of it didn't (this will always be the answer, since our format doesn't really allow for anything else). You want an objective record of the results? Check out our live coverage. You want opinion and analysis? Don't go anywhere. Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 8/8/23 episode of "WWE NXT."

Full disclosure: We've been a little down on basically the entire concept of pro wrestling since SummerSlam, and we were really looking forward to tonight's "NXT," because it's a show that's light and breezy and fun and doesn't take itself too seriously. And while we're not a huge fan of the whole Heritage Cup rules structure, the finish of Noam Dar vs. Tyler Bate, in which Bate won the fake Heritage Cup that Meta-Four gave Dar in order to bring him out of his grief-induced comatose state, seemed to be exactly what we were looking for. What an unabashedly and delightfully stupid story! Dar loses the original Heritage Cup to Nathan Frazer in a match he wasn't even in (Oro Mensah was defending the title on Dar's behalf), goes into a coma, gets revived by a counterfeit Heritage Cup, and then loses that. Amazing. 10/10. There are so many places you can go from there. Would Dar go catatonic again? Would Meta-Four give him a third Heritage Cup? Would he lose that one, too? Could we get to a point where everyone on the roster except Dar has a Heritage Cup? The possibilities are endless! The mind reels!

And then, creative heartbreak. We didn't even get through the rest of this week's episode before Dar and Meta-Four confronted Bate backstage and demanded he give back the trophy because some obscure Heritage Cup rule wasn't followed. Which would have been fine, except for the fact that Frazer showed up and convinced his Spider-Man meme look-alike to do as Dar asked. He even offered Dar a match for the real Heritage Cup on the condition that Dar admit the other one was fake, which he did. Way to be a buzzkill, Nathan.

Talk about taking the most boring option. Now the fake Cup is just going away, presumably, because what's the point now that Dar has admitted it's fake, and he and Frazer are going to have a regular-ass wrestling match for the real one. How disgustingly conventional. We're so disappointed in you, "NXT." You're lucky we got a scene later on where Angel Garza and Humberto Carrillo texted each other meaningful things about their grandfather while sad piano music played, or we'd be really mad.

We're not generally in the habit of "loving" matches just because they did a lot of cool moves, and we're a little disappointed that Mustafa Ali and Wes Lee are already done with each other, because that feud definitely had more left in the tank. That said, we have to admit that the opening match between Ali and Axiom was pretty rad, and Indicator #4297 of how utterly insane it is that WWE has never given Ali a real push. These guys were awesome together, and we're really enjoying this Ali character, who's definitely a heel but who also hasn't fully realized that yet. The finish involved Ali accidentally getting his fingers caught in Axiom's mask, taking advantage of the confusion by shoving Axiom off the top rope to the outside in a move that was effective entirely due to its simplicity, and hesitating just a moment before taking advantage again and hitting the 450 Splash. Really cool character work going on here, and we're excited for Ali's next storyline, whatever it may be.

Also, shout-out to how this match used Scrypts, as well the surprise appearance from Lucien Price and Bronco Nima. They weren't directly involved in the finish, but Scrypts appeared on the ramp at one point to watch Axiom's match, and was later joined by Price and Nima, who could get some mileage out of being Scrypts' henchmen after their not-entirely-smooth debut. All they had to do was show up to advance the storyline between Scrypts and Axiom; once that was done, the three left together, and Axiom vs. Ali was left to its undisturbed conclusion. Hey wrestling promoters, look: A way to involve other people in a wrestling match for story reasons without actually ruining the wrestling match with a distraction/interference finish! Take notes.

There were a lot of interesting moments from the "NXT" women's division this week, including a promo from the champion, Tiffany Stratton. Unfortunately, they all happened backstage. In terms of in-ring contests, we got Blair Davenport vs. Kelani Jordan and Ivy Nile vs. Kiana James, and it wasn't exactly stellar.

Davenport vs. Jordan was by far the better of the two matches, which makes sense — Jordan is still extremely green, but she sells well and she has some fun offense, and Davenport is Davenport. We're not totally sure about Dana Brooke kind of snapping and trying to beat people up in the name of preventing Jordan from experience the kind of WWE hardship she experienced, but at least Brooke is actually getting something to do for the first time in a while. There are a lot of ways that kind of story could go off the rails, and we're skeptical f the blow-off match if it's building to Brooke vs. Jordan, but we can reserve judgment for now.

James vs. Nile though ... man. This was just not good. James used to be one of our favorite members of the division in terms of her in-ring skill, but that hasn't shown up lately; instead we get stuff like Nile selling a kick that missed her head by what looked like a full yard. More egregious than that though, and the real reason we're handing out a "hated," is the fact that James vs. Nile didn't even matter in its own right. It was just a storytelling device for the continuation of the Schism/Creed Brothers feud, which has now become a Schism/D'Angelo Family feud. We'll admit that this is the first time in a while that Schism has actually creeped us out a little — the whole group banging on the ring apron during Nile's match, then pointing the way for James to leave ringside so they could focus on Nile, was legitimately chilling — but we don't like a women's division match getting shanghaied into the service of any men's division story, much less one as stupid as "Where in the world are the Creed Brothers?" Remember a few weeks ago when it looked like they might be doing something interesting with Ivy, like have Schism try to get her to join them with the Creeds gone or something? Yeah, those were the days. Here, she's basically just a damsel in distress getting rescued from the woke cult by the mafia. Wrestling is weird.

This episode suffered from a disappointing dearth of Carmelo Hayes content, but that was largely made up for by the fact that we got an amazing promo segment between Trick Williams and Ilja Dragunov. It very much felt like a continuation of the whole romance novel vibe we'd been getting from the Hayes/Dragunov feud, only this time it's Hayes' two exes pretending they're fighting about something else when really they're still fighting about who Hayes loves more.

Williams has always been really good on the mic, but we have to say, Dragunov is something different. It's hard to imagine a world where he doesn't end up being a major player in WWE, or elsewhere if they're dumb enough to drop the ball with him. He's amazing in the ring and amazing on the mic, and he's not even 30 yet! How is that fair to everyone else?

The point is that, as much as we enjoyed this segment and are actually looking forward to Trick vs. Dragunov at Heatwave in a way we wouldn't have expected, this has to ultimately be a way of getting us back to Hayes/Dragunov, right? Like, Dragunov is absolutely the right guy to take that title when it's time for Hayes to finally get called up for good, and while they may have amicably split last week, Hayes and Williams are still inextricably linked. We have to think that's the endgame for this, because we really doubt either Wes Lee or Dijak is taking the throne any time soon.

"Hated" is admittedly a strong word for how we felt about Bron Breakker vs. Von Wagner, but we definitely didn't love it. It just feels like that should be a bigger match than a 9pm bout on a random episode of "NXT," and we thought the match itself was smaller and less ambitious as a result.

Now, Wagner sticking Breakker with a powerbomb through the announce team after the match was pretty awesome, and probably means the feud is continuing, so there's the possibility of a bigger, more ambitious version of this match in the future. That's comforting, at least. But after the weeks and weeks of Wagner character set-up, followed by the set-up for Von vs. Bron, ending their first encounter with "Bron hits the spear and gets the clean pin, wow that was cool, who's ready for Drew Gulak and Charlie Dempsey vs. Josh Briggs and Brooks Jensen" was an odd choice from our perspective, no matter how many rematches they have planned.

Also, Bron, it's super cool that you can do a standing moonsault, but just work on that, my guy. You basically used it to hit Wagner in the chest with your face.

The episode's main event, Dominik Mysterio vs. Dragon Lee for the North American title, was about what you probably expected it to be, in that it was a Dominik Mysterio match. The in-ring action itself was the least notable thing about the contest — much more interesting was everything happening around it over the course of the episode, like Rey Mysterio wandering around interacting with "NXT" characters. We loved Thea Hail asking Rey whether he still loved his son even though they've been fighting, a not-so-subtle parallel to her own situation with her father figure, Andre Chase, but we loved even more that Thea's talk with Rey didn't automatically solve her issues, and that she still walked away from Chase at the end of the segment because dammit, knowing she's loved doesn't make her feeling stop hurting. Chase U, ladies and gentlemen. Possibly the best storyline in WWE now that the Bloodline is, uh ... let's say doing things differently than we'd hoped.

Anyway, much more directly relevant to the story of Dominik is the character of Lyra Valkyria, who has been getting groomed for stardom by Rhea Ripley during The Judgment Day's time in "NXT," but who showed up in a backstage segment to demand that Rhea practice what she's been preaching and let Dominik win or lose on his own. Rhea, of course, does not do that, helping Dominik win yet another North American title match by smashing Lee in the head with her title. We thought there was a chance Lee might take the belt here if Valkyria came down during the match to prevent Ripley's interference, but she actually showed up after the bell to confront Rhea and ultimately kick her in the face.

We're pretty sure we see what "NXT" is doing here, and we're into it. We assume Valkyria will eventually find a way to keep Ripley from interfering in a Dominik match, either by convincing her or (more likely) beating her in a match with some sort of relevant stipulation, and that will result in Dom dropping the North American title back to a regular member of the "NXT" roster. Who knows how long that'll take — it seems too quick to have it happen by Heatwave, but can they really stretch this all way to the No Mercy PPV at the end of September? It's unclear. We do like the story though — it's like a miniature version of the Bloodline in a way, with a champion holding onto his title due to outside interference and the only way for him to lose being to no longer have anyone interfering on his behalf. Or at least, that's what we thought the Bloodline story was. These days, who knows.