TJR Blog: Thoughts On Nakamura vs. Balor from WWE NXT 07/13/16 And Their Futures
This week’s edition of WWE NXT featured just one match: Finn Balor vs. Shinsuke Nakamura. It’s the first time they have had a televised match since Nakamura debuted in WWE earlier in the year. Both guys are good friends going back to their time in New Japan Pro Wrestling together. It’s a dream match that we got to witness on WWE Network this week.
I’m not going to do the full a recap because our excellent NXT reviewer Kurt Zamora covered it in great detail here.
This is merely a way to offer up some thoughts on a great wrestling match because I want to use this site to put up some smaller blog posts anyway.
It was awesome with Balor working over the knee for much of the match and coming close to winning several times. Nakamura did a great job of coming back. I was stunned when Balor kicked out of the Kinshasa because it hasn’t happened in a Nakamura match yet, but I loved the “fight forever” chant that followed. After that spot they really built up the finish well. Nakamura’s strikes are incredible. Balor’s ability to hit all kinds of different moves shows how diverse his offense is. Clean win for Nakamura makes sense.
It appears as though this was Balor’s last NXT match and he got the sendoff he deserved with a huge reaction from the crowd. The timing is right with the WWE draft on Tuesday. I’m excited about his future.
Nakamura is one of my favorites in the entire company. Top 3 with my Canadian guys Sami and KO.
In terms of star ratings, I would give it ****1/4 out of five. Nakamura vs. Zayn is my WWE Match of the Year. This was very good, though. I think it was better than Nakamura/Aries, but as I said not at the level of the five star Nakamura/Zayn match.
They are two of the best performers in WWE. Too bad they are not as good as main roster stars like Dana Brooke and Braun Strowman. That’s sarcasm.