NXT Philadelphia live results: Velveteen Dream vs. Cole vs. Riddle

Submitted by Richard Kelly

– The Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins & Montez Ford) defeated The Outliers (Dan Matha & Riddick Moss) w/ Robert Strauss

The Street Profits were very popular — Montez Ford has a ton of charisma. Strauss (the former Robbie E in TNA) came out to introduce his team. Neither was over, but Matha was good and did a good job getting heat with the crowd.

This was a basic tag team match that The Street Profits won when Ford came off the top with a crossbody onto Matha, who tried catching him but then tripped over Dawkins and was rolled up by both guys. Semi-looked like a botch.

– Io Shirai & Candice LeRae defeated Jessamyn Duke & Marina Shafir

As expected, Shirai and LeRae were beloved. Duke and Shafir looked better than they have in the ring. Duke in particular worked a lot of the match and some of her kicks looked pretty brutal.

This was another basic tag match that Shirai won with a moonsault on Duke.

– Punishment Martinez defeated Keith Lee

Good match. Both guys were pretty over and the crowd was split. Lee has a boatload of charisma and did a lot of really subtle things, especially facial expressions. It wasn’t really a heel/face dynamic, but it was just a solid back and forth wrestling match.

Martinez did a running step-up dive to the outside and hit his sit-out chokeslam for a huge near fall. Lee went for a moonsault off the second rope, missed, and then Martinez hit a Cross Rhodes for the win. Last five minutes were great.

– The Undisputed Era (Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly) w/ Roderick Strong defeated Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch

Undisputed Era were super over, as you could guess. Fun tag match while it lasted.

They got the heat on Burch for a long time. When Lorcan made the hot tag and was in there with Fish, Lorcan must have caught Fish in the head/face with a kick that rung his bell. The referee kept trying to get in there to separate the two and check on Fish, but Fish powered through several more spots, even though he looked pretty woozy.

The referee threw up the X, but then Fish made it over to the corner and they forced O’Reilly to tag in and forced Fish to the outside to get checked out by trainers. The finish was probably ad-libbed as O’Reilly hit a suplex into a cross armbreaker for the submission on Lorcan.

They quickly got Fish out of there and to the back. Hopefully it’s nothing too serious.

– KUSHIDA defeated Drew Gulak in a submission match

Incredibly good match. They announced a submission match with no pinfalls, no countouts, and no DQs, but then enforced rope breaks, which was weird but at least they were consistent.

KUSHIDA was popular coming out, but Gulak, who is from Philadelphia, was beloved by the fans. It was almost a 60-40 split for Gulak. They did a lot of really good technical wrestling and jockeyed for submissions. The crowd was into it the whole time because they knew that’s Gulak’s thing and they were there to see him stretch someone.

Eventually, KUSHIDA won with a tilt-a-whirl into the Hoverboard Lock. Very good match and it seems this is being set up as a mini-feud on NXT TV, so buckle up.

After the match, Gulak cut a promo saying he was glad to bring his style of wrestling to the fans in Philadelphia. Gulak said he trained at the 2300 Arena and came up in EVOLVE.

Gulak said that on July 13, EVOLVE is having their 10th anniversary show in Philadelphia and he’s issuing an open challenge for that show. On the big screen, a video played where Matt Riddle accepted the challenge. 

– NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler defeated Kacy Catanzaro to retain her title

Pretty basic match, although Catanzaro got more than I thought she would. Catanzaro is very small but incredibly agile and athletic and I think has a ton of potential.

Baszler spent most of the match working over the arm and twisting it into a lot of different shapes. Catanzaro’s comeback was full of high flying, including a frankensteiner off the top and a plancha to the outside. Eventually, Baszler countered a wheelbarrow attempt into the Kirafuda Clutch for the submission victory. 

– NXT North American Champion Velveteen Dream defeated Adam Cole and Matt Riddle in a triple threat match to retain his title

Riddle came out first and got a really good reaction. Cole then came out to an even bigger reaction. But Dream was the most over guy on the show. The fans were going crazy and he milked his entrance for everything he could. He gave his glasses to a small girl at ringside, which prompted chants of “Dream’s a sweetheart.” This guy is going to be a future megastar.

So, this was a crazy match — one of the craziest I’ve seen live. Riddle saw the most action in the match and hit all of his big moves, including the jumping Tombstone. At one point, all three superkicked each other at the same time for a triple down.

They got a lot of “this is awesome” chants. Finally, Cole went for the Panama Destroyer, but Riddle cut him off up top, so Cole hit a flip piledriver with Riddle on the second rope in one of the craziest moves I’ve ever seen.

Cole covered Riddle, but Dream flew in with the Purple Rainmaker on Cole to break up the count and then covered Cole for the win. Really crazy match — would’ve been at home on a TakeOver show. 

Really great show — almost a carbon-copy of the NXT Bethlehem show from the night before but they switched it up just enough to be special.