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NXT Great American Bash (2021) -- Results & Afterthoughts

On June 13, 2021, WWE announced that the ninth Great American Bash under the WWE banner (23rd overall) would return as a special episode of NXT, thus becoming an annual event for NXT. Instead of a two-night event like the previous year, it was only a one-night event, airing on July 6, 2021, and was held at the Capitol Wrestling Center, hosted at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida.

Tag Team Match for the NXT Tag Team Championship

MSK (Nash Carter and Wes Lee) (c) def. Tommaso Ciampa and Timothy Thatcher by pinfall

Great match to kick off this show, but at the same time, I found myself conflicted on who did I want to win this match the most while watching it live. MSK were the new kids on the block with a chip on their shoulders, looking to prove that they belong at the top of the food chain when it comes to tag teams currently in NXT. To be fair though, there's not much to sneeze at in almost dead tag team division that's currently on life support. On the other side though, you have the unlikely alliance of Ciampa and Thatcher that has surprised a lot of people of how well they mesh together over the last few months. Thatcher has been on the losing end of a LOT of matches of late, not to mention almost all of his NXT TakeOver/NXT TV special appearances have ended in losses, so I selfishly wanted to see him pick up a win here too.

I thought it was really telling that they were intentionally showing that Ciampa and Thatcher were making a lot of mistakes and taking the new kids on the block lightly, which proved to be a costly mistake by the time it was over. I really hope they aren't planting the seeds to split up Ciampa and Thatcher as they are one of the few solid tag teams that they have left on this brand. I'm completely over seeing MSK versus Legado del Phantasma matches or them against Grizzled Young Veterans.

Face-to-Face between Johnny Gargano and Karrion Kross for upcoming NXT Championship Match

This segment was fucking weird, man. Gargano was getting the hero's welcome from this live crowd, which is odd when Gargano has been a heel since even before the COVID-19 pandemic has closed everything down. I have been under the assumption that Kross has been the tweener since his return from injury, so it was a little odd that the crowd was behind Gargano's heel antics to sucker Kross into a NXT Championship match. William Regal makes the match, with the added bonus of Samoa Joe serving as the special guest referee. That addition was amusing for the fact that Gargano was hiding behind Joe throughout the most of this segment as a barrier for Kross could provoke Joe and get his ass kicked/choked out like anyone else who has been stupid enough to cross him.

I should also note that they are settling up Kross for a quick death on the main roster by splitting him up from Scarlett, who was reported on Main Event having a tryout match as a singles wrestler while Kross and Bronson Reed were working dark matches for tryouts too for the main roster. I have a feeling that they are going to strip that guy of everything that made him cool, just like they did to Aleister Black, only to release him in a few more years when they are stumped wondering why he didn't get over and only have themselves to blame. I hope that I'm wrong about that though. Scarlett and Kross' pairing shouldn't be split up at all. You would think that Triple H would start putting his foot down and going to bat for his NXT kids to succeed on the main roster instead of letting Vince fuck them up.

Singles Match for the Million Dollar Championship

LA Knight (c) def. Cameron Grimes by pinfall

Since Grimes lost, he became Knight's butler.

There was a lot of great wrestling in this match, but ultimately, I found myself not even caring who won in this feud by the time it was over. Plus, the whole "loser becomes my butler" gimmick was already done by AEW months ago with Chuck Taylor losing to Miro over on AEW last year, so I don't want to see this done again in another company right after that gimmick fell flat over on their show.

At the same time, LA Knight had no business losing here so it was the obvious result that Grimes was becoming his butler. That was another reason why I personally found it hard to get invested into this match. Nothing against the match itself nor the talents involved; it was just merely something that I couldn't find myself get interested in.

On a side note, can't help but get annoyed at the reactions on online during and after this match with people raving about Grimes and Knight when these were a lot of the same people who said these guys were boring when they were doing a lot of the same stuff while they were in IMPACT Wrestling and NWA. Talk about fucking fickle fans...

Tag Team Match for the NXT Women's Tag Team Championship

Io Shirai and Zoey Stark def. The Way (Candice LeRae and Indi Hartwell) (c) by pinfall

This match went over like a fart in church. The crowd was completely dead for this match and even more so for the debut/return that interrupted it - the return of Tegan Nox. Tegan Nox distracted Candice LeRae, allowing Io Shirai and Zoey Stark to pick up the win from the distraction. I thought that was pretty lame that the babyfaces had to "cheat" in a sense to win the titles from The Way.

As for the title change, congratulations to Io and Zoey, but it's been whatever with those NXT Women's Tag Titles at this point. They've hot potatoed those titles since they were introduced and I'm quickly losing interest in them.

On a side note, I have to wonder if Tegan Nox's return plans are out of the window since her and Shotzi Blackheart debuted on SmackDown! three days after this special episode of NXT. It's either that or Triple H had no idea of that call-up prior to this episode. For Tegan Nox's sake, I hope she gets a fair shot on the main roster as once WWE gets that sense that you could be injury prone, then they are less likely for them to put any long-term stock value into your character.

The only thing that I liked about this was the post-match bit where Dexter Lumis came out of the crowd and carried Indi Hartwell to the back. InDex is still a thing, folks. The rest of The Way can go kick rocks and fuck off somewhere as far as I care about that stable/faction.

2021 NXT Breakout Tournament field announced

I felt bad that I didn't have a damn clue who ANY of these guys were since they were going by their new WWE-esque names that they have been given. Can't say I recognize any of these guys by how they look physically either. I don't think that's a bad thing as I rarely knew who the guys were in Ring of Honor's Top Prospect Tournaments were, but found something to enjoy out of those tournaments too over the years. For those who don't know, that's exactly where NXT borrowed that idea from in the first place, when they haven't outright stolen enough ideas from ROH over the years...

Hit Row's "Cypher Celebration"

I felt sorry for the folks in Hit Row during this segment as the live crowd at the CWC seem like they didn't even know how to react to this. It completely all crickets in there. For me personally, I thought the freestyles from B-Fab, Top Dolla, and Swerve were all great. More of this please. It's the same type of stuff that sets The Acclaimed apart from the rest of the AEW roster when Max Caster comes out doing his freestyle disses/rhymes during his entrances. You can't write that type of stuff for non-white people to get over with this type of gimmick in wrestling.

That being said, this had to be the blackest thing on WWE programming in a LONG ASS TIME... if not EVER.

Singles Match

Adam Cole def. Kyle O'Reilly by pinfall

Can we all agree that Adam Cole's new music is fucking AWFUL? Just give the man back the Undisputed Era music for Christ's sake. It's not hurting anyone. Look at how long Roman Reigns ran with The Shield's music before they FINALLY gave him his own singles theme last year.

As for the match itself, I was behind this match 200% for the entirety of it until the last sequence that brought it down to the finish.

I call out AEW for doing matches out of order in a blood feud too (namely the current Inner Circle vs. The Pinnacle stuff) but I have to call out NXT for it too. This was the type of match that KOR and Cole should have had before their unsanctioned match where they did everything under the sun and it just comes across as a moot point here. We have seen both of these guys take far more punishment than this in the previous match, so I could understand how this match was a tough sell for casual fans or for people who have been keeping up with the storyline.

I will give them props for the psychology from bell to bell though with Cole constantly trying to hit the Panama Sunrise but to no avail, but when he finally did hit it, it was curtains for KOR. I thought that last sequence of moves was completely unnecessary when Cole already had him down for the count after the last big near-fall, but they did another lackluster and completely uncessary sequence of moves to make the finish feel flat.

It didn't hit me until I was chatting with my best friend who came down to visit for the holiday weekend prior about why this KOR versus Adam Cole feud hasn't done anything for me. I had already been exposed to KOR/Cole's feuds in Ring of Honor that felt like it dragged on forever prior to both of them signing to WWE and I had enough of it then. One would think that enough time has passed that I would be invested in seeing it done anew in this company, but nope. It's a darn shame too when I love KOR's work.

I don't know what NXT is doing in terms of their booking of KOR as a single, but having him lose in all of these big match opportunities is just proving what Adam Cole said to be absolutely right - "He's not ready to be at this level." Booking 101 says that when you prove that what your heels are saying is true then you're doing nothing but burying your babyfaces. I mean, seriously, where does KOR go from here? I guess you could book the rubber match between him and Cole at the next TakeOver, but who really cares at this point? I personally find that Cole has worn out his welcome on NXT and desperately needs to get called up to the main roster. I know a lot of people think that's a death sentence for him when it comes to his size, but I think his mic skills and ring work will make up for that.

Afterthoughts:

I didn't think this was a bad show. It's a show with a lot of great matches in terms of match quality and ring work, but overall, the show was easily forgettable by time it was all said and done. That's not a knock nor detriment of the talents involved, but that's a nagging problem with NXT as a whole over the past year or two now. I hope with the return of fans to the CWC that these shows will start feeling more lively than they have over the last few months because this show desperately needs a shot of adrenaline and some fresh new faces to liven up this stagnant roster.

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