WWE Worlds Collide results: NXT vs. NXT Alumni

WWE aired the first of their Worlds Collide specials from WrestleMania Axxess on Sunday night. The theme of this episode was current NXT wrestlers vs. NXT alumni. Byron Saxton and Percy Watson were on commentary for this broadcast. The venue was packed for this WrestleMania side dish.

Kassius Ohno defeated Aiden English

Short match without much to it. Ohno played the mean heel and gave English a hard time for being an announcer now. He yelled to the announce team on this show and used them to poke fun at English. 

Ohno pounded on English for a few minutes and the crowd didn’t react much. At times it sounded like the crowd was about to cheer Ohno but forgot he was the heel for this match.

English made a short-lived comeback and did a tope con giro and a swan dive senton into the ring for two. Ohno quickly returned with a ripcord elbow to the back of English’s head for the win. Kind of a nothing match, though neither wrestler looked bad. Nature of the card, I suppose.

Harper defeated Dominik Dijakovic

I find it funny that those in charge at WWE thought it’d be a good idea to shorten “Luke Harper” to “Harper” while “Dominik Dijakovic” is just fine.

This was a hard-hitting hoss match with some crazy dives at the end. The wrestler formerly known as Luke Harper got a great reaction on his entrance. He got a “welcome back” chant from the crowd. He has really leaned out in his time off.

Lots of “Harper” chants from the beginning. They exchanged shoulder blocks. Dijakovic did a few release suplexes where he’d throw Harper and not bump along with him. Harper countered with a big spike DDT and later did a Bossman Slam for two. 

The crowd would get pretty loud whenever Harper went to the top rope. At one point, Harper went for something but Dijakovic caught him with a chokeslam into a Liger bomb for a count of two.

Harper did a modified Michinoku Driver move on Dijakovic for two. It got a “holy sh*t” chant. People were very into the match from this point. 

After Dijakovic moonsaulted out of a top rope German suplex, he did an insane Fosbury Flop to the floor and followed it with a diving elbow drop and a moonsault into the ring for two. A guy at this size doing such amazing things and the crowd was still behind Harper. 

Harper made a surprise comeback and ended up pinning Dijakovic with a big discus lariat for the win. The two shook hands after the match. This felt like the main event of the show.

The Undisputed Era (Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly) defeated SAnitY (Killian Dain & Alexander Wolfe) w/ Eric Young

Undisputed Era were especially popular with this crowd. O’Reilly and Wolfe started the match off but did some stalling. Wolfe played some crazy-man head games with O’Reilly, who rolled out of the ring. 

Back in the ring later, SAnitY double-teamed Fish. The crowd died in the middle of this. Dain did a Samoan Drop/fall-away slam to both Fish and O’Reilly. The crowd would pop for spots and stay quiet in between. 

There was a nice striking combination from Undisputed Era that ended with Fish doing an exploder suplex to Dain. They later did their finish, the flying back elbow from Fish with a leg sweep from O’Reilly to Dain for the win. 

Eric Young beat on the Undisputed Era after the match. Production played SAnitY’s music after the match, before the next segment. 

Tyler Breeze defeated Roderick Strong

They played SAnitY’s music in the last segment because Strong’s music is the same as Fish & O’Reilly’s. I get it now. 

Tyler Breeze cut his hair and isn’t blonde anymore. He now looks like a lot of other indie wrestlers on the market these days. Strong taunted Breeze before the match, sitting on the top ropes in the corner like Breeze usually does. 

Strong dominated most of this match. The entire match felt like a showcase for him until the end. He did a lot of submissions that focused on Breeze’s back. Strong moves around the ring in such a logical way and it never felt like he was thinking about what to do next. He actually felt like the veteran in this match, even though NXT wrestlers are often positioned like the rookies.

Breeze mounted a comeback later in the match, mostly using a variety of big, loud kicks on Strong. Breeze went for his spinning roundhouse kick finish, but Strong caught him in mid-air and turned it into a Billy Robinson style backbreaker.

The crowd finally decided to get behind Breeze and started a “let’s go Tyler” chant. Then, pretty much out of nowhere, kind of like in the first match, Breeze hit the Unprettier for a clean win. 

Final thoughts —

This was a souped-up NXT house show of exhibition matches with a mildly enthusiastic crowd. Nothing was bad on the card, but there was nothing blow-away, either, or at least in the context of last week. People sounded most excited to see Harper and the Undisputed Era, and seemed most surprised by Dijakovic’s amazing agility. Overall, a decent but skippable show.