WWE NXT Portland Live Event Results
5/14/16
Portland, Oregon
Lines started forming around 5:00 outside the Moda Center and they let us in around 6:15 with a crowd of a couple hundred initially. I’m really bad at judging this kind of thing but I attempted counting by section and there was probably a little less than 1,300-1,400 people in the building by bell time. It wasn’t sold out but there also weren’t a ton of seats left either, maybe 100 or so in the upper rows.
There were so many Bullet Club and Balor Club shirts everywhere. Also a fair amount of Bayley and Nakamura merch as well. I saw almost no main roster stuff. Some good Roddy Piper support too as he was basically the biggest legend in the Portland wrestling scene. There was also an older couple (60s or 70s) in zubas and Young Bucks gear who are now my relationship goals.
Before the show Tom Phillips and the NXT female announcer whose name escapes me came out and did the Top Five gimmick where they asked fans their dream tag team. Some jerk made a bad joke about Nia Jax being fat and Tom called him a “stupid idiot” and got the arena to boo him. They also asked fans ringside about celebrating No Way Jose Day.
Right before the show they played a clip from the WWE special on Daniel Bryan retiring. Because they wanted us to cry right before being super excited, apparently.
1) No Way Jose def. Murphy with the Fastball Punch followed by a wristlock full nelson slam. There’s no other way to say it – this guy is OVER. All kinds of chants for Jose during what was essentially a fun comedy match, but given enough time for both guys to work. Loud “where’s Alexa” chant.
2) Tucker Knight def. Tito Sabbatelli. Despite this being the obligatory rookie match the crowd found a way to get into it. Tito was the obvious heel but got a dueling “let’s go Tito/ Tito sucks” chant, possibly because he’s a former NFL guy that played college ball in Oregon. Tucker won a decent, basic match with a Thesz Press, which was unexpected but not bad.
3) Bayley def. Nia Jax. Before the match the announcers asked if we were ready for some women’s wrestling and the crowd popped huge. Jax dominated most of the match with Bayley just trying to find something to take her down. There was a good sleeper and mounted triangle exchange and a wicked looking stunner between the ropes. Bayley won with a rollup out of the corner.
4) Austin Aries def. Mojo. The crowd was 100% anti-Mojo. There were big “we want Ryder” chants during all his rest holds. One interesting note was when half the crowd started chanting “you can’t wrestle” the other half was very quick to defend him with a “yes he can” chant. Almost seemed like they wanted to like Mojo they just didn’t have a real reason to. Aries won with the Last Chancery. I’ve now seen him wrestle in TNA, ROH and NXT live and he’s always great.
5) American Alpha def. The Revival to retain the NXT tag team titles. This was an abosulutely fantastic tag team match. Jordan’s dropkicks are incredible, maybe the best in the world right now. Everyone was given a ton of time to work, and Jordan has absolutely benefited from the popularity of Gable, as both guys are now getting huge reactions. They won it with the back suplex combo after a lot of close calls.
Intermission.
6) Shinsuke Nakamura def. Elias Samson. Man this was…disappointing, to say the least. Nakamura is in my all-time favorite list and this was my first time seeing him live so of course I was ready to mark out like a kid, but the match was just not very good at all. Elias did his Drifter gig before the match and sang us a terrible song. Way too much time spent on him as he did post-match antics too. The match was basic rest holds for 3 or 4 minutes, and Shinsuke doing his popular spots before winning with the knee strike. A lot of people were complaining about how boring it was. Obviously the point of NXT is to give opportunity to talents in training, but when you’ve got someone at this level doing short rest hold matches, it’s going to rub people the wrong way.
7) Asuka def. Alexa Bliss to retain the NXT Women’s title. Good match. The crowd was very into Asuka who continues to have crazy amounts of charisma in the ring without saying a word. Bliss doesn’t get enough credit. There was some dork doing cat calls at the women earlier on and a few people in the crowd gave him hell for it and he abruptly stopped.
8) Samoa Joe def. Finn Balor to retain the NXT title. An excellent main event that went long enough and because the title recently changed hands at a live event, there was actually some believable moments where you thought it might go back to Finn. Neither guy hit their finishers as they both had each other scouted so well. The crowd was actually split 50/50 between them which made for a great main event environment. Joe won with a handful of trunks to steal it.
After the match Joe went to celebrate his win but Finn laid him out from behind. The two fought all around ringside until officials tried to seperate them and failed. The roster came out in waves and kept pulling them apart. William Regal came out with even more guys to break them up. The show ended with Joe on the ramp, Finn in the ring with the NXT title, and the roster between them.
They were filming pieces of this show so you may end up seeing clips here and there surface on WWE programming.
All in all a really fun experience with a pretty stacked card considering this is their touring “developmental” brand. I’m still bummed Nakamura didn’t have a better opponent but it is what it is.
Biggest Pops:
-Nakamura
-No Way Jose
-Bayley
-Balor/Joe
-American Alpha
Biggest Heat:
-Mojo
-Samson
-Stupid fan who made fun of Nia Jax
