NXT HITS & MISSES 6/19: Damian Priest in-ring debut, Regal announces Breakout Tournament, Xia Li vs. Taynara Conti, Undisputed Era vs. Velveteen Dream & Riddle & Breeze

Opening segment with Undisputed Era – HIT: I’ll give this a Hit here because it was a well-executed segment. Everyone was over with the crowd. However, I hate when shows start with a segment that sets up for the main event for the show. It’s perceived as if there was no main event scheduled unless the problem between talent happened to arise. Dream, Riddle, and Breeze all interrupted, one after another, until Breeze stated that William Regal signed off on a six-man tag match for the main event for this show.

Io Shirai and Shayna Bayzler video segment – HIT: A Hit here as they did a good job showing the history of Shirai and Bayzler and their build up toward their cage match next week. One would think that Io Shirai has to win this next match to keep her credibility.

Raul Mendoza vs. Damian Priest – HIT: This was a great debut for Damian Priest. The crowd was hot for him. He has a unique entrance. Priest looked dominant and pretty much dominated Mendoza throughout the match. He looked good, but let’s see if he can stand apart from the rest of the top notch talent that is in NXT.

William Regal announces Breakout Tournament – HIT: A big hit here as the concept of this tournament is to give an opportunity to shine for some of the underutilized talent. Things like this should happen more in order to evaluate what some of these talent can do when given the chance. This is a great thing, not only for the winner, but for those who garner attention in losing efforts.

Xia Li vs. Taynara Conti – MISS: This one is a Miss. The match was good, but it seemed like a meaningless match. Both women looked good, but they are not perceived big stars, at least for the present time. There easily could have been something put in this spot that had more purpose and a story to it rather than this match, which seemed out of left field.

The Undisputed Era vs. Velveteen Dream & Matt Riddle & Tyler Breeze – HIT: A great six-man tag main event. I’ll give this a Hit here, but I would much rather see top-level singles matches to close the show. The match was good and featured fast-paced, exciting action by all competitors involved. There was a scary spot where Dream landed on Bobby Fish’s head with his knee, but he appeared like he was okay afterword. This, as one would guess, was easily the best match on the show. Roderick Strong pinned Velveteen Dream with one of his patented back breakers in what was a good ending to a good match.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Another good show from the Black & Yellow brand. I have been saying for a couple weeks now that I would like to have more high-quality singles matches for major title implications. There has been a lot of multi-man tag matches, and other matches that were thrown together out of nowhere, with no story or importance tied to them. With that said, it still manages to be an easily watched pro wrestling program. They are building up to Takeover Toronto with most matches to be made on NXT TV in the coming weeks. Overall, I really enjoyed this week’s show even with the lack of high-stakes implications in recent shows.

RECOMMENDED: 6/19 NXT TV REPORT: Undisputed Era vs. Dream, Riddle, & Breeze, Priest’s re-debut