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WWE NXT 7/15/20 Part 1: Legado del Fantasma Only Drink the Finest Soda

Two hours of wrestling down, two hours to go. We've seen AEW Dynamite: Fight for the Fallen. Now it's time for a regular edition of NXT. Who will win the Wednesday Night Ratings War tonight?

NXT opens with a recap of last week's main event. Keith Lee beat Adam Cole to become the first-ever dual champion in NXT. Keith Lee comes to the ring for a classic WWE opening promo. The trainee center crowd chants "Oh bask in his glory." Lee says that's beautiful, but there's something he enjoyed just a little more. He asks to hear his ring introduction a second time.

Lee says he's at a crossroads. He understands the past few months have been a little difficult. Losses. Hurt Pain. This is the closest anyone in WWE has come to mentioning COVID. But Lee says there's something so incredibly special that can occur in a WWE wrestling ring. Lee is feeling it from the trainees and crew and everyone. Keith Lee stands here as both North American and NXT Champion. He lays the two belts out on the mat.

Lee says he's celebrated, but the reality is there's an entire locker room that wants an opportunity at his titles. Lee says he understands that winning the belts wasn't done on his own. He needed opportunities and chances. He thanks his trainer, Tim Brooks (who recently passed away). Lee says Brooks was like a father to him who believed in him when no one else did. He also thanks the NXT Universe for welcoming him with open arms and telling the world how great Lee is. Now the world basks in his glory. There's one more person important to Lee's rise, and Lee saw him backstage today, trying to decide what to do with the rest of his career in WWE. Lee is celebrating for Tim Brooks. He's celebrating for the NXT Universe. And now he wants to have a talk with his number one frenemy, Dominic Dijakovic. Dijakovic comes to the ring.

Dijakovic says nobody on the planet is prouder of Lee than he is, but this moment is about Lee. Lee corrects him. This moment is about Lee and Dijakovic. The competition between them is one of the things that propelled Lee into opportunities. Dijakovic is the one individual that's tested his limits like no one else has. The best way to represent his championships is competition. So Lee talked to William Regal and Regal agreed that the first challenger for Lee's championships should be Dijakovic. Dijakovic asks when? Lee says there's no better way to honor competition than with the best competition. He wants to do it tonight. The crowd is into it. Well, they're being paid to be. Dijakovic is uncertain. Lee tells him to just say yes. He does. They fistbump. This is so wholesome.

Tegan Nox is shown walking outside the Performance Center. Nox takes on Io Shirai for the NXT Women's Championship in the main event tonight. But after a commercial break, Cameron Grimes takes on Damian Priest.

Priest makes his entrance, followed by Grimes, for what Mauro Ranallo calls a good old-fashioned grudge match. Grimes tries to sneak attack Priest before the bell, but Priest quickly gets the upper hand and kicks Grimes's ass around the ring. Grimes rolls outside and then back in and manages to trip up Priest and take control of the match. Grimes hits some offense and starts trash talking Grimes. Commercials.

After the commercials, Priest makes a comeback with a big clothesline on Grimes. You know, when done correctly, I think I actually like WWE making use of the commercials as part of the match formula as a sort of shorthand to represent the less exciting parts of a WWE match. Rather than watch the heel apply rest holds and other (purposely) boring offense on his opponent, WWE cuts to commercials for that part, and when they come back, you just assume that it's happened and the face can make a comeback. It's kind of like in comics, where things can happen between the panels that the reader just understands happened there, without needing to see it.

While I'm waxing philosophical about commercial breaks, Priest brawls outside the ring with Grimes for a while and hits an apron powerbomb. He also hits a flatliner inside the ring. After that, Grimes gets in a rollup and then a crossbody. This makes Grimes cocky so he starts talking trash. That fires up Priest who fights back and hits a nasty kick and a suspended Reckoning off the second rope. That's the pin, and after all these weeks of recapping this dumb show, I still have no idea why Mauro Ranallo calls Priest the Archer of Infamy. How is he an archer? He doesn't have a bow and arrow!

Io Shirai is seen walking outside the Performance Center. Then we get another Timothy Thatcher Thatch as Thatch can video. He teaches the Fujiwara Armbar. The video serves as a promo on Oney Lorcan after Thatcher beat him last week.  Commercial time.

Shotzi Blackheart comes out in her tank, which she used to run over Robert Stone last week, a recap video reminds us. Indi Hartwell comes out to face her. I'm not familiar with her, but Mauro Ranallo talks about her potential and Beth Phoenix says "her future is bright" so I can infer she is here to job to Shotzi Blackheart.

Blackheart pretty much has her way with Hartwell in the ring. She hits some submissions and a sloppy hurricanrana. Of all the moves in wrestling, I think the hurricanrana is the one that people screw up the most often. There's so many times that the wrestler doesn't fling themselves forward in time so it looks like there's a lag from when the wrestler performing the move flips their legs and when their opponent actually gets pulled forward. But no one every seems to mention it. We're all just like, eh, that's good enough.

Anyway, Blackheart kicks Hartwell's ass but then Robert Stone comes out and distracts the ref. Blackheart has never seen an episode of wrestling before, so she doesn't realize Aliyah is going to show up and tries to go to the top rope to finish off Hartwell. Aliyah shows up (who could have seen it coming?!) and knocks Blackheart off the ropes, causing her to lose to a jobber. Commercials.

McKenzie Mitchell talks to Tegan Nox backstage. Nox says she's traveled too far and done this for too long to not win. She says tonight is her night.

Tom Phillips introduces a video starring Legado del Fantasma. They're drinking in a fancy mansion and toasting the demise of their enemies, and they're talking each other up. Here's something funny. The idea here is that they're drinking liquor, but it's pretty obvious that Santos Escobar is drinking what appears to be diet coke, while the other two are drinking either water or sprite. I was too distracted by that to pay much attention to whatever else they were talking about. Tom Phillips thinks we didn't see the recap of Keith Lee's NXT Championship victory last week when they played it at the start of the show, so we need to see it again. F**k you too, Tom. Commercials.

Dominic Dijakovic heads to the ring. Keith Lee comes out. The entrances and introductions take up to right about the top of the hour, which means it's time to wrap up part one of this report. The results of Keith Lee vs. Dominic Dijakovic for both of Lee's championships will be in part two of this NXT report.

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