{"id":101938,"date":"2021-10-06T19:00:55","date_gmt":"2021-10-06T23:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=101938"},"modified":"2021-10-06T17:16:55","modified_gmt":"2021-10-06T21:16:55","slug":"nxt-2-0-is-still-finding-its-footing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2021\/10\/06\/nxt-2-0-is-still-finding-its-footing\/","title":{"rendered":"NXT 2.0 Is Still Finding Its Footing"},"content":{"rendered":"

On October 5th\u2019s episode of NXT 2.0<\/em>, WWE\u2019s developmental brand began building up to its first pay-per-view since its remodeling: The Halloween Havoc<\/em> event on October 26.<\/em><\/p>\n

The main event is set, as Bron Breakker <\/strong>answered Tommaso Ciampa\u2019s<\/strong> challenge.<\/p>\n

The rookie is seeking the NXT championship in earnest. Given that Breakker<\/a> has been obviously eyeing the title since NXT 2.0\u2019s debut? The match comes as little surprise.<\/p>\n

The revamped incarnation of NXT is now a few weeks old, and its too early still to say just what sort of aesthetic it is aspiring to.<\/h2>\n

The Black and Gold version of NXT gained a cult following. Not only for the way its production? But for how it mirrored the intimacy and athleticism of indie wrestling. Some of its established players are still hanging around, but are awash in a sea of newcomers. Breakker\u2019s and Ciampa\u2019s nascent feud is one example of how the new arrivals and veterans are sizing each other up and taking each other on as the \u201cpaint splash\u201d in NXT<\/a> continues to gel.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere? The heavily-pushed Toxic Attraction<\/strong> stable accomplished the near-impossible: facilitating a face turn for Raquel Gonzalez. <\/strong>Her transformation into a sympathetic character began in the waning days of Black and Gold NXT, when tag team partner\/henchwoman Dakota Kai<\/strong> turned on her and revealed that she had masterminded their alliance to pave her own way to the NXT women\u2019s championship. Kai has been MIA since NXT 2.0 unveiled. Gonzalez\u2019s transformation was cemented when Mandy Rose, Gigi Dolin, <\/strong>and Jacy Jayne<\/strong> jumped her after she retained the NXT women\u2019s title against Franky Monet <\/strong>on September 29. October 5 saw her forming and impromptu and tentative alliance with women\u2019s tag team champions Zoey Stark<\/strong> and Io Shirai.<\/strong><\/p>\n

NXT 2.0 is banking a lot on Toxic Attraction, and especially on Mandy Rose\u2019s new persona. A match for the women\u2019s championship between Rose and Gonzalez seems imminent.<\/h2>\n

Gonzalez\u2019s last challenger, Monet, violently displaced newcomer Cora Jade\u2019s <\/strong>opponent to face Jade in the ring, but Jade was victorious. Jade is billed as the youngest member of the roster, at 20 years old, and just as prominently featured as her youthful age is her relationship with Trey Baxter.<\/strong> Indi Hartwell<\/strong> \u00a0had a segment making cheeky innuendos about her honeymoon with kayfabe husband<\/a> Dexter Lumis. <\/strong>It seems that the new touches of backstage romance are part of NXT\u2019s new, edgier content. But its troubling that female performers seem to be bearing the brunt of these storylines.<\/p>\n

Women in wrestling have come a long way since being featured mainly as the wives\/girlfriends\/valets of male performers. So why go backwards, especially on a show that once touted its women\u2019s division as the best in the world?<\/h2>\n

Von Wagner <\/strong>and Kyle O\u2019 Reilly<\/strong> had a terse conversation that seems to be the seed of a reluctant partnership. Whilst newbie Wagner \u201crescuing\u201d O\u2019Reilly, the seasoned veteran pro wrestler and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu grappler, from Pete Dunne <\/strong>and Ridge Holland<\/strong> was a bit contrived, their locker room conversation, in which O\u2019Reilly expressed that he was reluctant to trust and alluded to the recent implosion of the Undisputed Era<\/strong>, had just enough promise to be the beginning of an \u2018odd couple\u2019 partnership in the vein of Mansoor <\/strong>and Mustafa Ali.<\/strong><\/p>\n

As NXT 2.0<\/a> continues to gel? Its new arrivals and the remaining performers from the days of Black and Gold NXT<\/a> are feeling each out. As well-in fledgling alliances like Wagner\u2019s and O\u2019Reilly\u2019s, or as adversaries like Breakker and Ciampa.<\/p>\n

\n

More from LWOS<\/h3>\n

Stay tuned to the\u00a0Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a> for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world. You can check out an almost unlimited array of WWE content on the\u00a0WWE Network<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Peacock<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tentative alliances and new rivalries form as NXT 2.0 continues to settle into its re-branding, as the build up to Halloween Havoc begins<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3715,"featured_media":101951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[7986,7299,2042,5393,7644,7297,3491,304,8023,7803,1752,5106,507,536,6991,5868,2892,2073,7789,7991,7298],"class_list":["post-101938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wwe","category-nxt","tag-bron-breakker","tag-cora-jade","tag-dakota-kai","tag-dexter-lumis","tag-franky-monet","tag-gigi-dolin","tag-indi-hartwell","tag-io-shirai","tag-jacy-jayne","tag-kyle-o-reilly","tag-mandy-rose","tag-mansoor","tag-mustafa-ali","tag-pete-dunne","tag-raquel-gonzalez","tag-ridge-holland","tag-the-undisputed-era","tag-tommaso-ciampa","tag-trey-baxter","tag-von-wagner","tag-zoey-stark"],"modified_by":"Ryan Boman","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3715"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}