NXT 266

February 25, 2015 – Winter Park, Florida

Hideo Itami def. Bull Dempsey
Alex Riley claims that Dempsey’s use of a chair at Takeover was the first time a chair ever made it into the ring in NXT. That actually might be true, as the only memory I have of chair use before this is Tyson Kidd trying to bring in a chair but being stopped by Natalya. I’d say from Itami’s Busaiku assassination of Dempsey here that Dempsey is pretty much done, but he actually controlled a lot of this match, much to its detriment. Tyler Breeze attacks Itami after the match, but he spends too much time trying to get the perfect selfie with Itami’s body and ends up being chased off by him. *½

Kalisto & Sin Cara def. Tye Dillinger & Jason Jordan
Solomon Crowe hacks the feed and says he’s coming after NXT Championship. Nobody in the arena acknowledges it. I guess his gimmick is that he’s a hacker. Dillinger bows at Cara again, which makes no more sense now than it did when he did it the last time they fought. Jordan does some awesome stuff in this, but when he tags out it becomes clear that he’s a babyface and Dillinger is a heel so Jordan bails on the match and Dillinger goes down. **½

Baron Corbin def. Tye Dillinger
Dillinger wouldn’t leave the ring until Jordan came back out to face him. Corbin came out instead and beat him in seconds. N/A

Becky Lynch def. Bayley
This was so much better than their last singles match, and one of the fastest-paced women’s division matches I can remember seeing. It was a breath of fresh air from these ladies to say the least. ***

Finn Balor def. The Brian Kendrick
Corey Graves references that Kendrick is a doomsday prepper and conspiracy theorist. Okay whatever, Spanky. The first half of the match worked much better because of Kevin Owens on commentary explaining that the moments the Balor was hesitant instead of ruthless are proof that Owens will beat him. That half was also totally overshadowed by the development of an issue between Owens and Riley. During the latter part of the match they were allowed to let loose outside the confines of developing storylines, and it was pretty fun. After the match, Owens comes back out and attacks Riley. ***