NXT Recap, April 12, 2017: Goodbye, Shinsuke Nakamura

A look at Shinsuke Nakamura saying goodbye and all the other happenings from the April 12 episode of NXT.

All Black Everything

It was somewhere between me thinking of all the incredible entrances that have come from NXT in the past year — Nakamura, Roode, SAnitY, and now, Aleister Black — and the end of the ten-second match where I realized what a talent this Aleister Black guy could be. He’s cool as hell, athletic enough to hit a spinning kick, which he calls Black Mass, with pinpoint accuracy, and doesn’t need to talk for people to know what his intentions are.

Poor Corey Hollis is going to be on a pureed food diet for the foreseeable future, and he didn’t even get in a single offensive move on Black; granted, Black used only a single move, but still. Black is someone I hope is on NXT television as often as he can be, until he gets called up to RAW and changes his name to Aleister Wyatt. Not to sound like Jon Gruden, but man, that’d be fun.

Tye-ing Up Loose Ends

In a backstage interview, Tye Dillinger spoke about his debut on SmackDown Live last week, and announced that next week he will settle his unfinished business with Eric Young. In order to avoid the other members of SAnitY, this match will be in a steel cage.

With already one tough goodbye to say later in this episode, next week will likely be a curtain call for the Perfect Ten. Dillinger won his main roster debut against Aiden English, and hopefully Dillinger being on SmackDown Live prevents him from becoming the next Dolph Ziggler, the career trajectory I predicted when he was still an NXT full-timer. SmackDown Live doesn’t need two guys who are great in-ring, but never able to win the big match, so here’s hoping Dillinger zags instead of zigs.

Back on Track

#DIY fought the odd duo of Dylan Miley and Michael Blaze. Gargano and Ciampa picked up the pinfall win to get themselves some momentum as they’re still in the hunt for the NXT Tag Team Championships, while Miley and Blaze didn’t even make it to the locker room before they broke up. Well, it was less of a “break up,” and more of a “Miley breaking Blaze in half.”

Gargano and Ciampa would have been one of my guesses of teams that would be called up to the main roster, but The Revival were the ones who caught the break. Believe me, I think those guys absolutely deserve it. I just wish they went to SmackDown Live instead of RAW, where talented tag teams are fewer and farther apart. Gargano and Ciampa, by my unscientific calculations, are due a one-on-one match with Authors of Pain. Hopefully they get that rematch soon, before Vince calls Triple H and has him put Heavy Machinery — insert Vince’s vinegar stroke face here — in every tag team match going forward, whether they are involved in the story or not.

Eyes on the Prize

Ember Moon had a walk around the empty, broken down Amway Center after Takeover went off the air. She was downtrodden due to her loss to Asuka, losing her first NXT Women’s Championship match. Moon will likely get another chance at Asuka soon enough, as they put on an incredible match in front of the Orlando crowd.

Speaking of the NXT Women’s Championship, Ruby Riot made her intentions of entering NXT clear by stating that the gold is her goal. She took on Kimberly Frankele in a one-on-one match, but it didn’t take long for Nikki Cross, face covered in that creepy bandana, to come ringside by way of the crowd. She didn’t hop over the barricade; she opened it up and clanged it on the ground to get Riot’s attention.

Cross and Riot have had a bit of a rivalry going, and the last we saw of them, they were bumping each other as part of the eight-person tag team match at Takeover. Riot picked up the win, and the thought of her vs. Cross in a one-on-one match to be No. 1 contender gives me that face Vince just made.

Oh, and Billie Kay was shoved into an ice bath by Liv Morgan. Do with that what you will.

A Hello and a Goodbye Walk Into a Bar…

NXT’s biggest free agent acquisition since Bobby Roode, Drew McIntyre, made his in-ring debut, and ended up leaving Oney Lorcan in a pool of blood. McIntyre came here not just to have great matches — though I’m sure we will see quite a few — but he won’t stop reaching for the top until he is finally sitting there. I’m not incredibly familiar with McIntyre’s early WWE work (I stepped away from the wrestling game during my late high school/college years), but I think a YouTube deep dive is in order, as he really impressed me in this small sample size of a match.

As for the goodbye, we bid adieu to the biggest draw NXT has had in the past year since he made his debut at Takeover: Dallas, Shinsuke Nakamura. Shinsuke was capable of nothing less than a classic match, and proved it time and time again against Samoa Joe, Finn Balor, Sami Zayn, and most recently, Bobby Roode. Even with the acquisitions of McIntyre and Kassius Ohno, the void that Nakamura will leave on NXT will be felt for a while. His recent call up to SmackDown Live pits him against Dolph Ziggler for his first big feud, and those guys will deliver a classic. I know this because Ziggler is a hell of a worker, and Shinsuke is … well, Shinsuke.

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So long, King of Strong Style. I hope blue suits you as well as yellow did.