Taking Our Lumps Or A Victory Lap: Wrestling Inc's NXT Vengeance Day 2024 Report Card
An eventful night at "NXT" Vengeance Day saw "that Trick" get whooped, and not just by "NXT" Champion Ilya Dragunov, as Carmelo Hayes finally turned on his longtime friend and partner. Beyond that, the PLE featured an unsuccessful Breakout Tournament contract cash-in from Lola Vice, Oba Femi successfully defending his North American Championship over Dragon Lee, Dijak and Joe Gacy doing all kinds of freaky stuff to each other, The D'Angelo Family knocking off OTM, and The Wolfdogs putting away Trick-Melo Gang to take the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic.
You probably knew all of that, of course. What you're here for is to see how the WINC staff did on our predictions for the first "NXT" PLE of 2024. Just as we did for Royal Rumble, and as we'll do for every WWE, "NXT," and AEW PLE/PPV all year long, we're holding our feet to the fire to see how good (or bad) we are, collectively, at telling the wrestling future. For Vengeance Day, we had a total of 14 staff prognosticators— here's how it all went down.
No Disqualification: Dijak [13 votes]
Others receiving votes: Joe Gacy [1]
There was only one of us in the Joe Gacy camp, and let's just start off by saying IT DOESN'T MATTER WHICH ONE OF US IT WAS, OKAY? Anyway, he (the loser, Gacy, who should never be picked, ever, obviously) and Dijak took the No DQ stipulation in this one to heart right from the start, with Dijak brandishing a nightstick a la Big Boss Man and Gacy returning fire by presenting a collapsible baton of his own.
Forced to the outside after a Gacy suicide dive early on, Dijak hadn't even taken off his ring jacket by time his opponent was loading up the ring with chairs and trash cans. Before too long, a table was set up in front of the entrance ramp and Gacy decorated it with kids' toys. 10 points for freakiness there and also the introduction of a unique pain element. (If you've never had the experience of stepping on a Lego or some other kid toy in a dark house in the middle of the night, then let's just say we're very happy for you and you should be infinitely grateful.) To go through it belly first, as Dijak did? Brutal.
Of course, that wouldn't be enough, nor would duct tape over Dijak's eyes, as the latter would somehow still hit Feast Your Eyes despite the visual impairment, and once again later, with the tape finally removed, to secure the win over a seemingly unconscious (yet smiling) Gacy. The ending to this one seems to indicate future interactions between the two, as Dijak (and the rest of the world) was pretty freaked out by happily-put-to-sleep Gacy in the end. And who doesn't want added freak show factor?
Six-Person Mixed Tag: The Family [12 votes]
Others receiving votes: OTM [2]
Out The Mud has enjoyed a quick surge to prominence in their time on "NXT" television to the tune of a pair of "NXT" Tag Team Championship opportunities and a showcase feud against the current champs, The D'Angelo Family. Despite their rise out of said mud, OTM didn't come into this one with the consensus confidence of our picking panel, as all but two pledged their loyalty to "The Don" and his underlings. (We took care of that thing, capisce? Fuhgettaboutit.)
The women of each faction, Jaida Parker for OTM and Adriana Rizzo with The Family, were the added element to this match, given a chance to shine on a big stage like neither had before, with only a handful of televised matches between the two to this point. Rizzo came away looking like a star, turning the tides for her crew on multiple occasions, including a diving crossbody to the outside off the top turnbuckle that led to the match's finish, Tony D'Angelo clotheslining an attacking Scrypts before tossing Lucien Price into the ring and for a spinebuster and then a fisherman buster to follow for the pin.
Looking ahead, OTM will regroup and look to re-climb the ranks for another title shot before too long, while The Family now awaits the winners of the Dusty Cup (who we'll get to in short order — and there's lots to think about there).
NXT North American Championship: Oba Femi [14 votes]
Others receiving votes: Not a soul
Before you hit us with a "Poor Dragon Lee" on account of our only unanimous prediction for this event, consider this: Maybe we all like him a lot and are giving him behind-the-scenes flowers for playing the role of David vs. Oba Femi's Goliath so well. That, Lee certainly did, taking a resounding lashing at the hands of the "NXT" North American Champion yet still making every effort to get in his own offense. Unfortunately for the former champ, Femi was able to withstand all of it, including an Octopus-like submission attempt that brought the big man to a knee before he found the ropes with his teeth of all things, a DDT to the floor that resulted in Femi tossing Lee into an announce chair with one hand, and a desperation roll-up from which Femi kicked out, plowed through the challenger, and powerbombed him straight to hell to secure the win.
This was the classic little guy/big guy matchup played out to near perfection. Femi looks great as a monster (as well he should, now and for a long, long time), and Lee takes no lumps from an equity standpoint whatsoever. The latter should get some opportunities stemming from this program, which began on the January 9 episode of "NXT" when Femi cashed in his Breakout Tournament contract to win the North American title. And as for the champ? We have a sneaky suspicion he'll be wreaking havoc in "NXT" (and perhaps elsewhere before too long) from here on out.
Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic Final: Bron Breakker and Baron Corbin [8 votes]
Others receiving votes: Carmelo Hayes and Trick Williams [6]
As the first match on the card, the Dusty Cup Final was always going to play a key role in not just the hype factor for the crowd, not just the main event itself, but also in how we all picked both this match and said main event, as the two were forever going to be tied at the hip.
Interestingly enough, while six of us had Trick-Melo Gang winning "The Dusty," none of those six also saw Williams coming out on top in the main event. The only two who did had The Wolfdogs prevailing in the opener, seemingly forecasting a bounceback story for Williams after suffering disappointment alongside longtime ally and friend Carmelo Hayes in the tournament. And only three of us correctly predicted a double dose of coming up short for Trick, which of course, is what ended up happening. (So three cheers for the doom-and-gloomers, then?)
At the end of this match, despite the miscommunication between Hayes and Williams that led to the loss, we still couldn't say what lies next for those two. (We can now, but we're not there in this piece yet, so hang tight!) But for Breakker and Corbin, that's much easier, right? Wrong! We do know that they are now #1 contenders for The Family's "NXT" Tag Team Championships (and will get their title match on next Tuesday's episode) but we also know that Breakker is a hot commodity being sought after by both "Raw" and "SmackDown." (Good thing, then, that he only suffered a minor cut when a slip under the top rope could've cost him an ear or a head or something instead.) So how does that work?
Maybe it's as simple as, they challenge and lose, and maybe that creates some strife between the two enemies-turned-friends. Maybe that means Corbin follows Breakker back to the main roster to seek revenge. Or maybe they win, and then we have the "NXT" tag titles on multiple shows. Let's hope it's not that, though — it didn't turn out super well for the "NXT" women's tag belts.
WWE NXT Women's Championship: Lyra Valkyria [8 votes]
Others receiving votes: Roxanne Perez [6]
Here we have another one split nearly down the middle, which was no surprise to most of us when our predictions were published. But in wrestling, we love surprises, right? So when someone else's music hit midway through this match, surely, most everyone excitedly thought, "Boy, howdy! What have we here?" The problem lies in the moment you recognized it as Lola Vice's music — and that's no slight to the 2023 NXT Women's Breakout Tournament winner, who has been a nice addition to the women's division with her unique flavor of sport entertainment, complete with an MMA background, a great look, and a sultry presentation, dance moves and all. But someone should have talked to her about strategy, like, a little, since turning in the guaranteed title shot you worked so hard for just to make an in-progress championship match into a triple threat makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Cash in when the match is over, no matter who wins, as surely they'll be beat up and gassed from what they'd just gone through. Cash in when someone's visibly hobbled during a promo. Dirty, sure, but all's fair in love and wrestling, and taking advantage of an opportunity is precisely what these cash-ins are supposed to be about. Or hell, cash in politely if you must, respectfully challenging whichever champion you want for an agreed upon date and time. At least that would be one-on-one and not a triple threat, where the odds are more difficult for everyone and you don't even need to be pinned to lose!
Anyway, all's well that ends well, and if you're gonna cash in like this, you deserve to lose. As for the predictions, our majority got this one right as well, with Lyra retaining after Tatum Paxley took out Roxanne Perez to give the champ a clear path to victory, planting Vice with a Nightwish for the 1-2-3. And hey, now we get a Vice/Perez feud, though there were a thousand ways to get to that outside of a wasted opportunity.
NXT Championship: Ilja Dragunov [12 votes]
Others receiving votes: Trick Williams [2]
In a bloody battle between two badasses who have seen plenty of each other in recent months, the champion, Ilja Dragunov, walked away with his gold. Trick Williams wobbled away with far less: no gold, no Dusty Cup, and no best friend after Carmelo Hayes finally did him dirty, chop-blocking his knee after the match and delivering a beatdown with a chair that left keen observers thinking "Poor chair!"
We saw it coming, as the 12-2 vote indicated, but as mentioned earlier, maybe not in this manner. Trick leaving Vengeance Day twice-beaten and once-betrayed was only foreseen by three of our pundits. If you look at this in terms of plans for Stand and Deliver, effectively "NXT's" WrestleMania, maybe this cleanly sets up an epic showdown between Hayes and Williams at that event. To get there, Hayes could win the belt from Dragunov, say, at Roadblock (announced as a special episode of "NXT" coming on March 5th), only for Williams to challenge him at Stand and Deliver, righteously come out on top, and send Hayes off to the main roster forevermore?
It sounds easy, but if we've learned anything this past week in wrestling, it's that nothing is ever easy.
Takeaways
A clean sweep for our consensus picks at 6-0 (although only three of us went 6-0 individually) means we're doing okay with these predictions so far this year, now up to 9-1 overall through two major events in 2024. WWE's Elimination Chamber is up next before we reunite with an AEW pay-per-view for the first time in what feels like forever with Revolution in early March, and then from there, we're knee-deep in WrestleMania season, with absolutely no controversy whatsoever on the horizon!
Cheers to the Chamber!