The semifinals are set in the 2022 Women’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic.
Wendy Choo and Dakota Kai advanced to the semi-finals by defeating Indi Hartwell and Persia Pirotta on NXT tonight. Cora Jade and Raquel Gonzalez will also move on after defeating Yulisa Leon and Valentina Feroz.
With their wins, the two teams will now square off in the semfinals. The match will pit Gonzalez and Kai on opposing sides after having won the tournament as a team last year.
The other semifinal sees the team of Io Shirai and Kay Lee Ray up against Kacy Catanzaro and Kayden Carder. Catanzaro and Carter defeated Ivy Nile and Tatum Paxley last week while Shirai and Ray defeated Amari Miller and Lash Legend.
This is the second year the Women’s Dusty Rhodes Classic has been held. Last year’s tournament saw Kai and Gonzalez defeat the team of Ember Moon and Shotzi Blackheart in the finals.
Women’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic: Candice LeRae & Indi Hartwell defeated Gigi Dolin & Cora Jade
205 Live’s first women’s match began with a typical tag team open; a headlock and a pair of quick tags. Jade gained control over LeRae. LeRae took advantage following a Hartwell distraction. Hartwell tagged into the match, landed a sidewalk slam, and tagged LeRae back in.
Jade rocked LeRae with a forearm and secured the hot tag. Hartwell tagged in only to be on the receiving end of Dolin’s leg kicks punctuated with a punt. Jade then rejoined the match, but Hartwell immediately retook control.
LeRae, now legal, and Jade traded back and forth rollups. Jade’s last kick out sent LeRae crashing into her own corner, allowing Hartwell to tag back in. Hartwell then dropped Jade with a spinning sidewalk slam and pinned her.
This was a wholly ordinary match. It was entirely by the numbers with nothing special going on, but seeing as it only exists to further the tournament, it could have been worse.
Men’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic: Timothy Thatcher & Tommaso Ciampa defeated Tony Nese & Ariya Daivari
Thatcher started the match by taking Daivari straight to the mat. After being contorted in one hundred ways, Daivari managed to tag Nese into the match; Thatcher then took Nese straight to the mat. Ciampa tagged in and continued the ground work on Nese.
Nese forced Ciampa into his corner, and with aid from Daivari, took the advantage for his team. A quick takedown left Ciampa tied up against the turnbuckle post; Daivari relentlessly whipped the legs of Ciampa into the metal beam. A Daivari figure-four leglock in the middle of the ring left Ciampa in deep water.
Daivari lost control of the legs, which allowed Ciampa to gain a quick tag. Nese tried to maintain control for his team, but Thatcher hit the ring with ferocity. Suplexes and uppercuts left both of his opponents downed, but eventually, the numbers proved to be too much. Nese connected with a running hotshot followed by a moonsault. Daivari then hit the Persian splash for a near fall.
Following the kick out, Thatcher reached the corner for a tag. Ciampa then took on both of his opponents, just as Thatcher did moments prior, and again the numbers proved to be too much. This time things played out differently; however, as Thatcher joined in even the odds. After a quick locking of eyes and a look of understanding between Ciampa and Thatcher, Ciampa hit Willow’s Bell on Nese and pinned him in the middle of the ring.
This was a strong match. It played well off of everyone’s strengths and came together under a nice bow.
Note: The following contains spoilers from tonight’s NXT tapings.
Ricochet and Aleister Black are the winners of this year’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic.
They defeated the team of Wesley Blake and Steve Cutler in the main event of tonight’s NXT tapings at Full Sail University, with Ricochet hitting the 630 for the win. As a result, they will face the NXT Tag Team champions War Raiders at TakeOver: New York on April 5.
After the match, the duo were awarded the trophy. The War Raiders came down and had a stare down with their future challengers. Once that was over, Ricochet took the mic and said that while tonight would be their final appearance at Full Sail, they always will be NXT.
The tournament started on the last set of tapings back on February 20. The Forgotten Sons defeated Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch as well as Moustache Mountain to advance to the finals. Aleister Black and Ricochet meanwhile defeated Fabian Aichner and Marcel Barthel, as well as the reformed DIY.
Previous winners of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic include Finn Balor and Samoa Joe, The Authors of Pain and the Undisputed Era.
The Big News: Kota Ibushi was pinned by SAnitY. (No, really.)
The Medium News: The Revival forfeited a match, allowing DIY to advance to the Dusty Classic semi-finals.
The Little Beaver Sized News: TM61 and the Authors of Pain also advanced to the next round of the Dusty Classic.
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We start things off with Charly Caruso giving us updates on the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, which was just to say that all four Round 2 matches would happen tonight.
This was taped in San Jose, California, during (and I quote) “NXT’s hugely successful tour of California this past weekend”. Aries came out in street clothes and announced that he was unable to wrestle due to an injury in a match with Shinsuke Nakamura. Aries encouraged TM61 to forfeit.
Out came Mr. William Regal who confirmed Aries’ injury, but instead of waiting a week to do the next match, he announced that one member of TM61 would face Roderick Strong and the winner’s team would advance.
Shane Thorne took the challenge as we were informed this match was “previously recorded” which is funny since NXT is always “previously recorded”. This was a very good match. Strong and Thorne fought on the top rope, and Strong laid him out with a back breaker on the top rope, which looked a lot better than when Charlotte and Sasha Banks did it.
Thorne hit the Alberto Del Rio double foot stomp from the top rope which led to the fans chanting “Si, si, si”. Thorne had the match won with a sit out power bomb, but Aries distracted the referee. Miller went after Aries, but Strong hit a baseball slide dropkick. When Strong turned around, Thorne used a small package for the pin!
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Next week is the official contract signing for Samoa Joe vs Shinsuke Nakamura at TakeOver.
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Dusty Rhodes Classic Quarterfinals: DIY defeated NXT Tag Team Champions The Revival via forfeit (non-title)
This is supposed to be the rematch from TakeOver: Brooklyn, where the two teams had the best match of the night and one of the best of the weekend.
Scott Dawson came out on crutches. Is everyone injured on this show? Dawson claims to have suffered a possible career threatening knee injury and his doctor told him if he was a jamoke like Ciampa or Gargano he wouldn’t be able to wrestle, but since he is such a man all he has to do is take two Ibuprofen.
Dawson announces that in order to prevent an even bigger injury, The Revival is dropping out of the tournament and saving DIY the embarrassment of tapping out to The Revival.
Not mentioned by the announcers is the fact that they were actually forfeiting, unlike Austin Aries, and that’s why we had the first match and not the second match.
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Cedric Alexander said Andrade Cien Almas taught him you need to be vicious and have a mean streak and he would like to thank Almas in the ring, any time any place.
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Someone is returning! Great! They didn’t tell us who though.
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DIY was backstage and Dashe flew in to ask what they were thinking. Gargano & Ciampa said it reinforced what they were going to do. They are going to win the Dusty Rhodes Classic and then win the NXT Tag Team Championship.
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Dusty Rhodes Classic Quarterfinals: The Authors of Pain defeated No Way Jose & Rich Swann
Jose started the match by dancing which frustrated Acham. This led to a hurricarana on Acham, which is the biggest offensive move hit on the AOP so far. Rich Swann fared well against Rezer until he got caught by both men outside the ring, but it’s okay because Jose dove off the top rope onto them.
The AOP finally cut off Swann and that was it for Swann. To show his worry, for the first time Paul Ellering had to cheat, choking Swann on the ropes behind the referee’s back. Like all good tag team matches, we got a hot tag. Jose was in and showed that his offense was just as effective against two people. Jose actually picked up Acham and hit him with a TKO for a near fall. However, Jose got cut off and was hit with The Last Chapter. The AOP move on!
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I am sure everyone who reads spoilers already knows this, but the semifinals are next week and it’s only the finals that will be at TakeOver: Toronto, unlike last year.
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We got a Mickie James video package to build to her facing Asuka at NXT Takeover: Toronto.
Like in the first round, Alexander Wolfe and Sawyer Fulton represented SAnitY. My spell check sure hates every time I type SAnitY.
Both cruiserweights looked good against their larger foes. Perkins put Wolfe in the kneebar and Wolfe tagged out to Fulton, who got in the ring and was trapped in a kneebar of his own. The shine actually went on through the commercial break and into the second half of the match. Ibushi did the Triangle Moonsault, but Perkins got caught on his dive and slammed onto the ring apron (which is the hardest part of the ring).
Wolfe was hungry during the heat, so he chewed on the middle rope and then the tag rope while waiting to be tagged in. Wolfe had his knees up for the Fulton body slam, but Perkins got out of his, dropped Fulton face first onto his partner and made the hot tag.
Ibushi hit the Golden Star Power Bomb, but Eric Young distracted the referee. Then in the most shocking thing since Charlotte beat Sasha Banks in Boston, Wolfe pinned Kota Ibushi with their double team slam.
That was unexpected.
So that does it for this week! Next week it is SAnitY vs TM61 and DIY vs The Authors of Pain! Who moves on to the finals? Until then remember to say your vitamins and take your prayers!
Strong was very over in L.A with lots of ‘PWG’ chants for most of his match. Jose almost pulled the win with an F4, but Strong (who looked crisp the whole match) finished Jose with a flying boot to the face.
– TM61 def. Sanity in a Dusty Rhodes Classic semifinal
M62 rolled-up Alexander Wolfe after a dropkick from T61 which gave them the victory. After the match, Nikki Cross slapped Wolfe who seemed to enjoy it.
– Daria Berenato def. Mandy Rose
For most of the match, Daria gave Mandy MMA punches and kicks. Daria won with pop-up spine buster.
– Tye Dillinger def. Buddy Murphy
This was an entire match based on crowd reactions: Dillinger is a “10”; Murphy is a “zero.” Dillinger won in a nothing match.
– NXT Women’s Champion Asuka & Ember Moon def. Billie Kay & Peyton Royce
Asuka gave Billie Kay a stinkface, which got a huge pop, followed by a Rikishi chant. “Asuka’s gonna kill you” was basically the whole match. Ember looked fantastic ad her stunner from the top on Peyton was absolutely vicious. It looked like she killed Peyton. The win came via Asuka submitting Billie with a rear-naked choke.
– Authors of Pain def. DIY (Ciampa and Gargano) in a Dusty Rhodes Classic semifinal match
Lots of fans chanting “D’Lo Brown” for Akam of AOP. The fans loved DIY. The two best spots were when Gargano did a dive and was caught by the two AOP members outside, and then as Ciampa was running to do a dive, they threw Gargano into Ciampa’s head. The other was when Rezar of AOP did a double samoan drop with both members of DIY on his back. Paul Ellering was more involved and seemed more like a third member tonight.
The finish was DIY doing their double finisher on one of the AOP members, followed by a referee distraction by Ellering. The Revival came out from the bottom of the ring, knocking out Gargano while Ciampa got the AOP leg-sweep-clothesline finisher.
– Bobby Roode def. Kota Ibushi
Roode’s entrance was very over and Ibushi wrestled like a god. His missile dropkick was sharp, his standing shooting star was marvelous and his moonsault from the corner was perfection. They got about 20 minutes in a well-paced match. There were “fight forever” chants after Roode kicked out of Ibushi’s Last Ride. The finish was Ibushi missing a top rope corkscrew moonsault, Roode delivering his modified DDT almost like a brainbuster.
– NXT Champion Nakamura def. Samoa Joe and Eric Young in a three way
Young’s Mad Max-esque ring gear looks a lot like Tatanka’s and he did a great job of selling the idea that he was the crazy person in the ring with lots of torture-style wrestling moves. Lots of TNA chants the few times we got to see Joe and Young together in the ring alone as most of the night was Joe vs Nakamura with Young getting thrown outside.
Standard three-way but seeing Nakamura German Joe was pretty spectacular. Young also delivered one of the better top rope elbow drops you’ll see. Young was outside when Nakamura gave Joe the Kinshasa for the pin. He then cut a promo: “You guys great audience,” followed by: “Yeah, yeah, yeahhhhh,” and he did his bowing pose in the middle of the ring.
