NXT Battleground: Tampa (2025)

The NXT Premium Live Events have seen a resurgence in quality and popularity of late, and I have been so here for it. This latest show, which I am naming under the NXT banner, despite WWE naming it under their company banner now, which is odd. Either way, this looked to be yet another excellent show with a strong card. Unfortunately, I watched this show a couple of days late, but I was still very excited for it.

The night's action started with Sol Ruca's defence of her Women's North American Championship against the talented former champion Kelani Jordan. I have become a big fan of both of these women since I began re-engaging with NXT, so I was very excited to see them lock-up one-on-one. It came as no surprise to me, therefore, that this was a really fun match. What was so evident was just how much both women have improved in the last year. They were as smooth as butter the whole match, including during some fairly fiddly and difficult sequences. The finish was absolutely exquisite too. The match rightly received "this is awesome" chants, and served as an epic opener for the night's proceedings.

Match two of the evening saw 'The Culling' take on the NXT Tag Team champions Hank and Tank, as well as Josh Briggs, in six-man tag team action. This match was okay, but didn't inspire much excitement, if I'm honest. There were some decent spots, and the only outright poor spot was an awkward near-fall, but, again, I can't say like this match did much for me. It was fine, no more, no less. The post-match scrum added a little extra flavour and fun to the segment, so there's that.

This was followed by what I hoped would be the physical and explosive blow-off match to the Tony D'Angelo and Channing 'Stacks' Lorenzo feud. The heel turn that kicked off this rivalry was cool, but I was still waiting for said-rivalry to really kick off in anger. I must say I enjoyed the back and forth a lot. Did it live up to the physicality I was hoping for? Maybe not, but it sure was a pretty good match. The ending was very interesting storyline-wise, and makes me wonder what will happen next in the saga of 'The Family'.

The NXT Women's Championship was on the line next, as 'La Primera' Stephanie Vaquer defended her gold against Jordynne Grace. This had match of the night written all over it, and I could not wait for it. These two women feel destined to fight for bigger titles on the main roster sooner than later, and this match was testament to just that notion. These are the two best women in NXT at the moment, particularly since Roxanne Perez and Giulia graduated to the main roster - a fate which will surely come the way of the two women who competed in this match sooner than later. This was a superb match from start to end, and had an absolutely great false finish which shocked me. I was absolutely thrilled by this one, and the final crescendo was very cool too.

The fifth match of the night was the NXT Championship match between 'The Ruler' Oba Femi and the rather random but interesting challenger Myles Borne. I only ever saw this one going one way, but I hoped to see a cool in-match story play out regardless. The match had a pretty solid underdog story running through it, which was to be expected. I liked the eb and flow of the match, which kept me nicely engaged throughout, despite my lack of doubt about the result. The match was just about what I expected it would be, but I really wasn't too mad about it.

Finally, it was time for a historical main event, which saw the TNA World Championship defended on a WWE PLE for the first time, as the champion Joe Hendry defended his title against NXT's Trick Williams. The crowd was electric for this one from the opening bell, and the two men thrived upon it. I won't say this was a classic exhibition of in-ring work, but it was a brilliant example of working the crowd effectively and feeding off of a live audience. The matches closing moments were extremely dramatic and left a lot of people shocked. It was a really cool moment that I enjoyed thoroughly.

Overall, I'd say this was a good event, but perhaps not the strongest NXT show of the year so far. In fairness, there's been some stiff competition, but when I think about in-ring action, this event just didn't quite have that strength all the way through. The two women's matches were excellent, but the others didn't quite get me as excited. With that said, the storylines for those other matches still delivered, so I can't say I was unsatisfied in any significant way. Role on the next big NXT event - I'm sure it'll be another good one.