1/26 NXT in Tom’s River, N.Y.: Final matches before Takeover featuring Gargano & Strong vs. Almas & Dream, Black vs. Cole, AOP vs. Undisputed Era

NXT LIVE EVENT REPORT
JANUARY 26, 2018
TOM’S RIVER, N.J. AT PINE BELT ARENA
REPORT BY TOM MCKEEVER, PWTORCH CORRESPONDENT

If you attend a live event, please send a report like the one below to pwtorch@pwtorch.com. Thanks!

Took my kids to a fun show at the Pine Belt Arena, which is really just the Toms River North High School gym. It was about 3/4 full.

(1) The Street Profits beat TM61 with a splash off the top. Fun decent action.

(2) Nikki Cross defeated Taynara Canti with her suplex thingy. Crowd loved Nikki.

(3) Kassius Ohno beat Fabian Aichner. First time I’ve seen Ohno live; he’s got a great charisma.

(4) The Authors of Pain beat Undisputed Era clean in a really good non-title match. No Paul Ellering. Crowd was really into it, though.

At intermission, they showed a lot of fun videos and did a give away to the two kids sitting in front of us, which annoyed my son. Ha. They played a “Who am I?” game, where a bunch of wrestlers were shown on screen with obscured pictures from the main roster. Everybody, heels and faces, were cheered until the last guy, Roman Reigns, who was savaged. I was surprised, considering the number of kids there.

(5) Kairi Sane & Ember Moon defeated Lacey Evans & Shayna Baszler. Even though it seemed fairly obvious Evans was going to take the pin, and she did, she played the bad girl role really well. Sane and Moon we’re flying all over the place.

(6) Aelister Black beat Adam Cole in a wild match. I think the pin came when Cole brought a chair into the ring and got tied up with the ref and took Black’s finisher. This was great, and Cole was pretty much the star of the night.

(7) Johnny Gargano & Roderick Strong defeated Velveteen Dream & Andrade Cien Almas. This was really good too, with everyone seemingly getting everything in. Gargano caught Dream in that Rings of Saturn thing he does and got the tap out after 15 minutes or so. Gargano then cut a promo about how he was going to beat Almas tomorrow to sell the Takeover card, I guess, since it’s about an hour down the road in Philly.

Best matches: Cole-Black, AOP-reDRagon, and the main event.

Biggest reactions were probably Adam Cole (he came off as a real star), Velveteen Dream, and then Gargano and Ohno, but to a lesser degree than those two.

If you attend a live event, please send a report like the one below to pwtorch@pwtorch.com. Thanks!

NOW CHECK OUT THE PREVIOUS REPORT: 1/20 WWE Live Event in Lowell, Mass.: 205 Live brand including Enzo vs. Cedric, Bray vs. Woken Matt, Itami vs. Gallagher