All for One
The men entering the Iron Survivor Challenge are Joe Hendry, Je’Von Evans, Leon Slater, Dion Lennox…and
Myles Borne. Myles was the last addition after he defeated Trick Williams thanks to not one, not two, but three Borne Agains. Way to make Trick look good in defeat while making Myles make good on his word to take down Trick and move on to Deadline.
The ending set up a different dynamic for the match. DarkState interrupted Myles’ celebration and surrounded the ring. The other Iron Survivor combatants came to his side. In a match where anything goes, Dion has the advantage because he’s got an entire crew behind him. While his counterparts can band together for a bit, it’s only for a bit. In the end, they have to look out for themselves. While they’re busy doing that, Dion can tell any one of his goons to strike. How do you defeat that?
That instantly makes Dion the most dangerous cat in the match and adds even more stakes. It also, hopefully, sets up the territory to deliver on how dangerous they always say DarkState is. If this is about control, as Dion reminded us this week, then I want a match that sees them use all of their resources to snatch it. Leon and Je’Von are cool but they will fight each other for gold. Joe is everybody’s friend but he fought to be in WWE and he’s not settling for a “WrestleMania moment.” Then there’s Myles, who ditched his crew in hopes of getting to this moment. Dion doesn’t have those issues.
I’m not saying Dion has to win for DarkState to seem effective, but they do need to be a part of the match. Deliver on the promise that this ending made and find some way to make that match unfair for everyone else.
Album Cuts
- I’m glad Fallon Henley has some gold around her waist. While I’m not completely in favor of putting the Speed Championship on a show that too often juggles a lot, it at least puts the championship in a group that gets a huge share of the spotlight. As for the match itself, it wasn’t purely within Speed parameters. Fallon and Zaria battled to a draw, which prompted Ava to call for sudden death. No, not my favorite Van Damme movie. That’s when the match picked up for me because there was clearly more story to tell. Perhaps too much story for the time constraint. I really like Fallon in the ring which is why I hope they keep reminding the world she has a personality. She showed her stuff in this match, as did Zaria, but Fallon shined a bit brighter. But the main story is Fallon had help and Zaria didn’t. Sol Ruca didn’t accompany Zaria while Fatal Influence supported Fallon. If not for Lainey Reid pulling Fallon out of harms way outside the ring, Zaria doesn’t crash into the steel steps. And if she doesn’t collide with those steps, then maybe, just maybe, Zaria is the new champ. The one issue I have with the outcome is even though Fatal Influence gets more attention, Zaria should’ve won for sake of the story. There’s more drama if she has a belt after costing her partner the chance to get one and lost her other one. Now they’re just two women without championships but a ton of issues. Sol not having her back is a big deal, especially after it looks like she took Ethan Page’s advice to look out for number uno, but still.
- On the flip side, there’s Lei Ying Lee. As far as NXT TV goes, she got the least representation leading up to this triple threat for the TNA Knockouts Championship. It was just a quick homemade video and she seemed like an afterthought. Which made her winning the championship a complete surprise for me. But how she won this fantastic triple threat was indicative of her being an afterthought. Triple threats are always about being in the right place for the right cliche win. It feels less tired when it’s an underdog. I do wonder whether Kelani Jordan and Jordynne Grace chase this championship though simply because they lost it, or is the Knockouts Championship truly back home where it belongs. Speaking of those two…
- Perhaps competing in the women’s Iron Survivor Challenge will heal their wounds. John Cena picked them, along with Kendal Grey, Lola Vice, and Ms. Sol. I like these choices because each has something going for them to contribute to the whole. Kendal is the Evolve Champion proving herself on the big stage. Lola has two championship matches under her belt but no wins. Jordynne’s chased championship glory since she got to NXT, and Kelani just lost a title, meaning she’s eager to get one back. And then there’s Sol, who lost two championships in succession and is having a moment with her best friend over the subject of gold. Each woman is desperate in their own way, which should make for a compelling match.
- As it relates to Kendal, she retained her title, which surely put a damper on Fatal Influence’s night. There was a lot of commotion towards the end with Jacy Jayne & Fallon Henley getting involved, Wren Graves trying to stop them, Charlie Dempsey making his return and catching Wren after Lainey kicked her off the apron, then then ref tossing all of them to the locker room. And it really didn’t amount to much as Kendal retained. The weirdest moment of all that for me? Fallon distracted the ref on one side of the ring while Jacy was on the other side and she didn’t even try to attack Kendal. What was the distraction for then?
- I don’t like that we’re not getting Izzi Dame’s reasoning until next week. That was the closing angle from last week’s show and we’re not following up on it for another week? Also would’ve been nice seeing Tatum Paxley after that big loss. Besides losing a championship through betrayal, she’s not usually the most stable human walking. It’s hard to believe she did nothing or is cool sitting idly by while Izzi waits a week to explain herself. There was a lot to get to on this show, so maybe that’s the reason. Maybe that’s also why we didn’t really hear from the new NXT Women’s champ. Jacy talked, yeah, but not in the way a new champion would and which we’re accustomed.
- Speaking of conspicuous absences, no Oba Femi. We got a video interview from Ricky Saints that I liked. Ricky showed some vulnerability and questioned whether he just caught Oba on the wrong night. Is he a bump in the road for Oba or is this truly a changing of the guard? Good questions I paraphrased but shows Ricky isn’t all flash. And yeah, there’s a little fear there. Not of Oba but of not meeting his expectations for himself.
- I don’t watch Evolve so I don’t know too much about Sean Legacy and Jackson Drake. But I really enjoyed watching them work together this week. They were crisp and provided just enough animosiy to let me know this is a heated rivalry. Sean retained his championship in a hard fought victory. The anguish on Sean’s face post match said it all. Dope storytelling in the ring and outside of it.
The opening match and the triple threat were the showstoppers for me this week. But everything else felt a bit flat if only because, again, NXT is spinning too many plates at the moment. When the show stretches its focus to TNA and Evolve at the cost of handling its own business, it usually doesn’t work for me. This was one of those weeks. That said, the fields for these Iron Survivor Challenge matches are on point. My only regret is that there’s only one more show between now and Deadline.
What say you, Cagesiders? Who wins the Iron Survivor Challenge matches?
