NXT Review – 08.18.26

By Niz on 19 August 2026

NXT joins us from The Performance Center in Orlando, FL, and on the CW/Netflix airwaves. The announce team for tonight includes Vic Joseph and Booker T on match calls and analysis, Mike Rome on ring intros, and Emily Agard on interviews and news segments. We’re two weeks from Heatwave, so let’s see what has been cooked up for tonight. It’s time, so let’s watch some wrestling!

Here’s the part where I discover that “seamless” moving of an Xfinity cable account does not retain your DVR settings, and thus, I have no NXT recording from last night. (I don’t have any of the recordings I had because it’s all on the cloud and….I CAN’T PUNCH A CLOUD)

So, because it’s near 3 AM Wednesday morning, what I’m going to do is this – I have not seen the show and now won’t before I have to leave for work, so I’m getting the results, posting that, and normal reviews will resume next week. I do apologize to everyone for this.

Results:

Cruz Montana joined things to call out Zilla Fatu, who apparently hadn’t arrived yet. AAA Cruiserweight Champion Rey Fenix popped out, since he’s on every WWE-produced show right now, and urged Montana to deal with Fatu directly. Montana went to THE PARKING LOT to wait.

EK Prosper won a four-way number one contenders match for the AAA Cruiserweight championship that also included La Parka, Romeo Moreno, and Tristan Angels. He will face Rey Fenix for the title next week.

Zilla Fatu will in fact be joining the proceedings as he’s expected to sign his NXT contract tonight.

Nattie Neidhart defeated Thea Hail by submission. Nattie refused to release the Sharpshooter after the bell sounded to end the match, and her thugs Evolve Women’s Champion Nikkita Lyons and Karmen Petrovic held Jaida Parker back forcing her to watch Hail be tortured by Nattie.

Lexis King retained his WWE Men’s Speed Championship by defeating Lucien Price. A post-match Birthright attack brought out Bronco Nima to make the save, and the OTM crew hugged it out.

Grayson Waller held an airing of grievances over the arrival of Zilla Fatu. NXT Men’s Champion Tony D’Angelo and Cruz Montana joined things to discuss all of their various issues. This brings out NXT GM Robert Stone who makes a triple threat for D’Angelo’s title at Heatwave.

NXT Men’s North American Champion Myles Borne offered a title shot to Shiloh Hill should he beat Jackson Drake tonight.

Robert Stone had another short conversation with Keanu Carver who mentioned yet another newcomer getting special treatment over him.

Kali Armstrong and Kelani Jordan defeated NXT Women’s Champion Kendal Grey and WWE Women’s Speed Champion Wren Sinclair when Armstrong pinned Sinclair after a Kali Connection. Apparently Jordan has finally earned her long-awaited title shot against Grey at Heatwave.

Saquon Shugars and Dion Lennox had a video chat that ended with them agreeing to a steel cage match next week to settle all things between the two of them.

Jackson Drake defeated Shiloh Hill after NARAKU blasted Hill with some poison mist, and Drake capitalized with a 450 that ended things. This result means that Drake challenges Myles Borne at Heatwave, while his Vanity Project buddies Brad Baylor and Ricky Smokes get a tag team championship opportunity against Borne and Tavion Heights that same night.

NXT Women’s North American Champion Zaria and Kali Armstrong got into it in Robert Stone’s office. This resulted in Stone making a match between them next week where if Armstrong wins, she gets added into the nonsensical title unification match at Heatwave that’s currently scheduled to include Zaria and Wren Sinclair (Why are we merging these two titles – I know the Speed titles are mostly useless but this is just weird?)

Zilla Fatu finally arrived to sign his contract. Part of his contract included a clause that his first match is going to be a title match, and thus he will be added to the NXT Men’s title match at Heatwave, making it a fatal four-way. During this entire process Cruz Montana, Grayson Waller, and Tony D’Angelo were out to watch all this unfold and somehow a brawl didn’t break out?

Again, I apologize for not having a proper review, and shoutout to the Observer’s site for the match results. We’ll get back to business next week, and I appreciate you bearing with me.

Discuss below!