NXT: New Year's Evil was a special episode of WWE's weekly television series NXT, broadcast on the USA Network. It took place on January 6, 2021 at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida and feature WWE's virtual fan viewing experience for their NXT brand division called the Capitol Wrestling Center. It was hosted by Dexter Lumis.
Six matches were contested at the event. In the main event, Finn Balor defeated Kyle O'Reilly to retain the NXT Championship. In other prominent matches, Santos Escobar defeated Gran Metalik to retain the NXT Cruiserweight Championship, Raquel González defeated Rhea Ripley in a Last Woman Standing match, and in the opening bout, Karrion Kross defeated Damian Priest.
New Year's Evil is a professional wrestling event currently produced by WWE. It was last used for a special episode of WCW Monday Nitro on December 27, 1999.
If you watch this show on Hulu, they condensed this entire show down to a hour, so you only get to see Kross/Priest, Rhea/Raquel, and O'Reilly/Balor. Everything else in this show was cut out and rightfully so to be honest.
Results:
Singles MatchKarrion Kross (with Scarlett) def. Damian Priest
Singles Match
I understand that Karrion Kross had to go over in his first match back from injury, but I thought it was a questionable decision to have him going over Damian Priest. Priest already was in a nothing feud with Johnny Gargano and Leon Ruff to drop the North American Championship at the tail end of 2020. I'm guessing this was his way of doing the honors on the way out if the rumors are true about him being called up to the main roster, namely the SmackDown! brand.
There were a few good bumps in this match, but the time it was all said and done, I can't say that I was really that impressed with this big man match. Much like his match with Keith Lee, I don't think that Kross excells against other big guys his size and stature. It was impressive that he was able to Kross out cold for the finish, so at least that point got across.
I've seen far worse openers for NXT shows than this, so I can't knock this match too much in that regard.
(Laughs) I have to ask though but why did Scarlett come out here dressed like she was managing The Ascension to the ring instead of her boy toy here?
Singles Match for the NXT Cruiserweight ChampionshipSantos Escobar (c) (with Joaquin Wilde and Raul Mendoza) def. Gran Metalik (with Lince Dorado)
When I heard that this match was announced, I got really excited as I thought that we would have a sleeper hit on our hands if these two guys got enough time to showcase what they are made of. It's no secret that I enjoyed Escobar's work when he was in Lucha Underground as King Cuerno, but just haven't seen nothing from him here that makes me care in the least. It's the same thing with Gran Metalik. When I saw him in the Cruiserweight Classic, he was one of my top favorites in that tournament, along with Kota Ibushi (of course). Then WWE signed the guy and he's been booked like utter shit in this company. This match did neither one of these guys any favors.
Every single one of these title defenses for Escobar goes the same way. Babyface works from underneath, with Escobar's goons getting involved at some point to make the excuse for a big dive into everyone huddled up at ringside (I'm getting to the point that I'm starting to loathe that spot in 2021 from how much it's been whored out lately), and Escobar sneaks the win to retain. Seriously, why the fuck should I goddamn care about Legado del Phantasma? NXT does absolutely nothing to make me care about those guys. Nine times out of ten, I change the channel when they come out here. Tonight was a special exception. The only solace here was that it wasn't the 2,000th match against Isisah "Swerve" Scott or Breezango.
Singles MatchXia Li (with Boa) def. Katrina Cortez
For the past few months of 2020, Xia Li and Bao have been part of some strange vignettes where they were forced for some bizarre martial arts training by the tutelage of mysterious, yet punishing master. For weeks, I was begging for them to get to the point of all of these violent torture-themed vignettes. Tonight, we get to see the fruits of these labors - at least with Xia Li anyway. They set their master down in a throne on the entrance ramp where she can watch the match play out like Shao Khan in Mortal Kombat. I didn't get the sense of her presence here. Maybe they should have called Catrina and Mil Muertes to pull that feat off instead. That shit was fucking amazing at the start of Lucha Underground Season 2.
All jokes aside though, I was fan of Xia Li's in-ring work since her debut in the Mae Young Classic. Her problem was always that she lacked any sort of gimmick or storyline. It's amazing that she has that degree of talent in WWE's developmental system, yet doesn't have many joshi women to work with outside of Io Shirai to practice it properly. Xia Li's strikes always looked devastating; I dare say hers are up there with Asuka's in terms of legitimatcy.
As for this match, it was simply a squash to get the ball rolling on this new direction for Xia's gimmick/character. If this gets her closer towards the NXT Women's Championship then I'm all for it. It should be noted that Katrina Cortez is new trademarked name for Catalina Garcia.
I still have no idea who is their master. Rumors floating around saying that it's Karen Q that they signed from Ring of Honor a while back since they were initially billed as a tag team before COVID-19 pretty much killed their house show loops. My guess is that they are saving that spot for Saree/Sari Fujimura (one of Kyoko Inoue's students) that they signed from Stardom/Sendai Girls, wherever COVID-19 settles down and she's allowed to travel outside of Japan and move to the Capitol Wrestling Center/Performance Center full-time.
Last Woman Standing MatchRaquel González (with Dakota Kai) def. Rhea Ripley
Last Woman Standing Match
It's no secret that I watch NXT and AEW Dynamite at the same time with both my tablet and TV going at the same time. It was borderline disrespectful that AEW put on Hiraku Shida's Women's title defense against Abadon at the same time as this match. In comparison to the powerhouse match that opened this show, this was definitely the better of the two, even though I have grown bored with this feud between Rhea Ripley and Raquel Gonzalez over the last few weeks. If this match was truly Rhea's swansong to the NXT brand, then I tip my hat to her for this performance. This was the win that Raquel desperately needed to further establish her as another powerhouse female on that NXT Women's roster.
Rhea and Raquel beat the hell out of each other from bell to bell, ending with what looked like a Riptide (Pumphandle Slam Powerbomb through the entrance ramp). If that wasn't enough, Rhea had already speared Raquel through the glass double doors backstage and stuffed Dakota Kai into a locker like it was high school gym class to pretend her from interfering.
I don't know what these people are thinking if Raquel Gonzalez isn't the next person to challenge and possibly win that NXT Women's Championship from Io Shirai. Don't forget that she pinned Shirai during War Games to win the match for her team.
Mixed Tag Team MatchKushida and Shotzi Blackheart def. The Way (Johnny Gargano and Candice LeRae) (with Austin Theory and Indi Hartwell)
I'm all for Kushida getting a proper push on NXT, especially for the North American Championship since Gargano sure as hell doesn't need it, but the addition of this match felt like filler just to waste time when it could have been given to the main event instead. I will admit that I'm slowly warming up to The Way's antics, but they didn't need to be shoehorned into this match.
I know it had to suck for Austin Theory to get that airsoft projectile shot directly at his junk too. He deserves a kick to the balls if all of those accusations against him last year during #SpeakingOut hold any merit too. I like Shotzi Blackheart as a person, but I'm starting to get annoyed at how much her character is forced down our throats on this program from week to week. NXT books like they only have the same 3-5 women on that roster as part of their women's division. She's pretty average in the ring, especially when compared to the fact that they have a roster of so many talented women that they are barely using or not at all at the Performance Center.
This last minute booking here made for an easily forgettable match. I could easily see why this match and the segment before it was cut out of the Hulu version this show.
Singles Match for the NXT ChampionshipFinn Bálor (c) def. Kyle O'Reilly by submission
Singles Match for the NXT Championship
This was another hard-hitting affair between Balor and O'Reilly, but I didn't think this was as good as their previous match at TakeOver. They did have a few interesting spots here, such as O'Reilly using his mouth for the rope break and Balor immediately kicking the ropes to possibly break his jaw in the process. That proved to be the tale of the tape as this match went on as Balor continued working over O'Reilly's jaw until he was forced to submit. I didn't think their previous bout deserved to be named NXT Match of the Year either, but it was definitely in the Top 5. WALTER vs. Ilja Dragunov was easily the best thing to come out either NXT brand, but NXT had an angle to build off with O'Reilly winning one of those placques for Finn to hand to him personally face-to-face to setup this match.
At this point, I'm starting to wonder whether or not Finn Balor is overstaying his welcome on this version of NXT when we have still been robbed of the Balor vs. WALTER match from WrestleMania weekend last year over on the NXT UK brand. Where does O'Reilly go from here? It seemed like they were setting him up for a possible run with the championship when Cole and Strong announced themselves as part of the 2020 Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic. As for Balor, I guess they want to do Balor against Pete Dunne next since they have been teasing that for a few weeks now since Pat McAfee is off the table for a few months. That's another match I'm not going to complain about seeing as I'm sure it's going to be great.
Closing Thoughts
One of the biggest tidbits of news to come out of this show was the announcement of a Women's Tag Team version of the Dusty Tag Team Classic. I don't see how WWE is going to pull that feat off when they barely know what to do with the Women's Tag Team titles as a whole and they barely have enough women to stretch for all three brands' women's divisions. NXT have a lot of women that they haven't even debuted on television or barely use at all, so I guess they will make half-assed teams out of those women. In either case, I can't say that I'm excited over the idea here. It just seems like a knee jerk reaction to IMPACT Wrestling bringing back their Knockout Tag Team Championships. The major difference between their women's division and NXT's is that they don't have their women in randomly paired teams. All of their pairings have been established for months or rather years on end from their various storylines.
Out of the two shows that were going on live as part of these Wednesday Night Wars, AEW definitely put on the better of two shows. Even though this was a special episode of NXT on par with a TakeOver event in terms of the stacked card, I can't say that this show was on par with a TakeOver special. Most of these matches left me feeling either bored or causing me to go "That's it?" by the time it was all said and done.
I don't know what's been going on with NXT since the tailend of 2019, but they really need to get their act together. I used to be excited to watch NXT every week, but now it feels like as much of a chore to watch as the other two brands of WWE programming and that's not good.
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