NXT Showdown 2025

Although it was slightly strange to sit down and watch a WWE premium live event on a Tuesday night, it was still exciting to see NXT and TNA not only working together, but doing their own version of the infamous 'Invasion' pay-per-view of the early noughties, when the recently bought WCW "invaded" the WWE. No, this wasn't quite to that level of significance, but the anticipation I felt was, nonetheless, fairly high. This looked like a really fun show from top to bottom.

Opening the evening's brand versus brand action, it was the champion versus champion, title-for-title match, with the iconic Hardy Boys - the TNA Tag Team Champions, taking on NXT's Tag Team Champions; Dark State. It was good to see the other two members of NXT's heel faction removed from the equation early on, which allowed the focus to stay on the in-ring action. It is always good to see Jeff and Matt Hardy back in the WWE, and it's also fun to see them lending their star power to the NXT brand and their young talents. The match was solid, if not exceptional. Dark State are still growing as a team, and the Hardy's are older and slower, but I still had fun. The result was a little predictable, mainly because of outside factors, which sort of gave away what was supposed to happen, but I liked how these two teams worked their way through the match, regardless.

Hoping to build on that solid start, it was time for the womens Survivor Series style elimination tag team match, with Team TNA; composed of TNA Knockouts Tag Team Champions; The Inspirations, Mara Sadé, and the TNA Knockouts Champion; Kelani Jordan, taking on Team NXT's Lola Vice, Jaida Parker, NXT Women's North American and WWE Women's Speed Champion; Sol Ruca, and NXT Women's Champion; Jacey Jayne. Oh, and to add to that; Jordynne Grace was the special guest referee. To no one's surprise, this one got chaotic quickly, in the best way. Once the match settled down a little, a good rhythm was established, broken up by the eventual eliminations. The early eliminations made sense, and from there the action only picked up. There was an awkward ring announcer botch, which kind of gave away the finish, but aside from that, this was a really solid tag team match. The right team definitely won - I would've been shocked if it had gone the other way, considering the team members involved.

Splitting the two tag matches was the NXT North American Championship match, with Ethan Page defending against TNA's Mustafa Ali, himself a criminally underrated WWE alumni in his time. I was so pumped up to watch two of the best wrestlers from NXT and TNA rip it up with gold on the line. This ended up being a terrific match, with Ali playing the underdog, and Page all-too-happy to play the villainous champion. Ali once again proved why he's one of the best wrestlers in the world on his day, and Page continued his stellar work since joining NXT. The match ending was as smart as it was shocking, and provided a memorable and exciting finish.

It was now main event time; the men's Survivor Series style elimination tag team match, with Team TNA; TNA X-Division Champion; Leon Slater, TNA International Champion; Frankie Kazarian, Moose, and Mike Santana, taking on Team NXT; Je'Von Evans, Miles Borne, TNA World Heavyweight Champion; Trick Williams, and NXT Champion; Ricky Saints. The match also had Joe Hendry as special guest referee, which was another fun edition. The first elimination surprised me because of how early it occurred, but the rest of the match flowed well. I kind of knew how this one was going to go, but I thought the men involved did a good job of creating tension. The closing stages added some extra storytelling pointers for the coming weeks, and allowed the winning team to gain some much needed momentum.

Overall, I thought this was a really fun premium live event, which reminded me a lot of the traditional Raw versus Smackdown Survivor Series events, which I enjoyed a lot growing up. Yes, this was on a much smaller scale, but the in-ring action was almost all very enjoyable, and there were plenty of narrative developments all around to make this feel like more than just a throw-away event. I'm hoping that the NXT and TNA relationship continues to flourish - there certainly doesn't seem to be any sign of it ending soon - but, for now, attention turns to NXT's Halloween Havoc event, at the end of the month.