Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s review of "WWE NXT" Heatwave, the show that saw no fewer than five championships change hands over the course of five championship matches! Here at WINC, we have some thoughts about those title changes, from Wren Sinclair and Kendal Grey both losing their belts to Grayson Waller claiming the NXT Championship.We also have thoughts about Myles Borne's apparent heel turn, Jaida Parker tapping out Nattie, and more!If you missed the show (possibly because you were watching AEW All In instead) you can catch up on the whole thing by checking out our "WWE NXT" Heatwave 2026 results page, which includes everything you need to know without any of our pesky commentary and opinions. If our pesky commentary and opinions is why you're here, however, you're in the right place! Here are three things we hated and three things we loved about "WWE NXT" Heatwave 2026!
I'm going to be honest. The two matches I looked forward to this weekend weren't "NXT" Heatwave matches. They belonged to the AEW All In card: Copeland/Cage vs. The Young Bucks for the AEW World Tag Team Championships and AEW Women's Champion Willow Nightingale vs. Mercedes Mone. Unfortunately, I have yet to see either match as "NXT" Heatwave began overlapping with All In just as Adam Copeland and Christian Cage made their entrances.Excluding a discombobulated Submission match, Heatwave turned out to be an overall fun show. From what I saw and heard about All In, it seemed to be a solid show as well. I would have liked to enjoy both shows live, though.Watching wrestling live along with everyone else is a much more fun experience. Yes, replay exists, but it can't match up to the real-time excitement.So-and-so does an impressive move? A heart-pounding near fall follows? Those are things that would naturally make me jump out of my seat while watching. Due to social media clips and chatter, I likely already know about them now, however, which makes an organic reaction virtually impossible to draw out of me. The fact that I couldn't fully immerse myself in my go-to matches one of which pitted two of the greatest tag teams against each otherlive was a bit of a bummer, too.Written by Ella Jay
Zaria is your new unified Women's North American Champion and Women's Speed Champion!The Triple Threat Unification Match between Zaria, Wren Sinclair, and Kali Armstrong did exactly what an opener is supposed to do on a professional wrestling show: set the tone for what's to come and generate excitement for the rest of the event. These three women gave it their all in the ring and had awesome chemistry with one another, making for a fast-paced and compelling match that was full of plenty of near falls. It was incredibly fun to watch, and also had a little something for everyone with Armstrong and Zaria's hard-hitting moves mixed in with Sinclair's submission based, high-flying style.At the end of the day, I think that the right woman in Zaria ended up coming out on top. While Armstrong has shown a lot of promise inside the ring from the matches she's taken part in on "NXT" and is bound to be a future champion, I can't help but feel like she needs a little more time to be established on "NXT" programming before strapping her up with any title in the women's division. I also just don't think Sinclair has had enough on-screen time as a solo competitor and needs a bit more establishing in that regard, as most of her recent screen time has seen her paired up with NXT Women's Champion Kendal Grey in some capacity.Written by Olivia Quinlan
I'll start off by explaining that these recent "NXT" premium live events, and I don't even know if that's what we're even calling them these days, don't feel like true PLEs to me. From the commercial breaks to the backstage segments that don't have anything to do with the matches on the show that's happening (looking at you, Kam Hendrix and Naraku) they just feel like weekly television. And the submission match pitting Jaida Parker against Nattie, the rubber match in their summer-long feud, felt like it belonged on an episode of "NXT."The in-ring action itself was fine, with Nattie once again in there as a solid hand to help out Parker, who's done well for herself as it is, of late. There was just so much interference throughout the match that it felt like a normal WWE TV match. At one point, AAA's Perros del Mal came out to make Karmen Petrovic go back with them, leaving Nikkita Lyons to get taken out by Thea Hail.It felt strange that Petrovic and Lyons were out there to assist Nattie in a submission match, of all things, and we learned via commentary that it was somehow a no disqualification match. That made even less sense Petrovic and Lyons could have got more involved from the beginning, in that case, though I'm glad they didn't. I don't believe submission matches are usually no DQ outright, but Vic Joseph let those of us at home know that was apparently happening.The match felt like it went on a little too long during a night with much bigger, more exciting things at stake. In the end, Nattie tapped to her own move, putting Parker over, so I'm glad we can at least move from this. I don't necessarily mind Nattie in "NXT," where she can maybe help out EVOLVE Women's Champion Lyons, but this feud went on for what felt like forever. Parker was already extremely over with fans, and the basis of the feud, with Nattie accusing her of being "soft" and not ready for the big time, never really connected with me to begin with.Written by DaisyRuth
The majority of us expected a betrayal to take place at "NXT" Heatwave. What we didn't foresee, however, was Myles Borne as the man behind it.All signs pointed to his tag team partner Tavion Heights turning. Heights previously accused Borne of forgetting about their friendship. He then appeared visibly upset after Borne defeated him to retain the NXT North American Championship at the Great American Bash. Then Vanity Project pinned Borne, causing him and Heights to lose the NXT Tag Team Championships.After that third development, we at Wrestling Inc. thought Heights had motive to either cost Borne the NXT North American Championship later in the Heatwave show or target him after a successful defense. Neither happened as Heights actually helped Borne by neutralizing Bray Baylor on the outside while he defended the title against Jackson Drake inside the ring. Borne then went on to lose his title to Drake, then left Heights looking up at the lights courtesy of a Borne Again.Borne's turn is especially surprising considering that he's inspired so many fans with his real-life story; WWE has also molded him into one of the most supportable stars on the "NXT" brand. Perhaps that's exactly why he turned, though. Every star needs a freshen slate at some point, and Borne's pivot to the dark side is definitely an intriguing one. With "NXT" Heatwave going head-to-head with AEW All In, it gave viewers an extra reason to tune in, too.Where Borne will go from here, we don't know, but it's safe to assume that we will be curiously and excitedly tuning in to find out.Written by Ella Jay
We've known for weeks that the NXT Championship scene has been chaotic, and it seemed to only get crazier and crazier for a while, so today's main event was going to be a wild one no matter what. While I predicted Grayson Waller was going to walk away victorious as really the only heel in the match, so everyone else can feud with him on weekly TV moving forward I didn't expect him to steal the pin on now-former champion Tony D'Angelo.The former "Don of 'NXT'" has kind of looked like a chump throughout these last few weeks, despite being the only Grand Slam Champion in "NXT" history. Everyone has overshadowed him, from Cruz Montana appearing as a surprise debut after leaving TNA, to Waller coming in and putting the locker room on notice with his pipe-bomb-esque promo, to Zilla Fatu's debut and the subsequent reveal that he'd be added to the then-triple threat title match at Heatwave. Having him take the pin here from Waller just doesn't feel right to me.Montana hit the Spin the Block to go for the pin on D'Angelo, and Waller snuck in there and stole it. I guess WWE wants to keep Fatu and Montana protected, and D'Angelo could possibly be on his way up to the main roster after so many years in "NXT." I'd assume he'd get his rematch against Waller first, however, and it seems likely he'll lose, which also sucks for him, and it wouldn't make for too solid of a start on the main roster. I just didn't like the chaotic way the last bit of D'Angelo's title reign went, from the end of July until the very last moment, with him feeling like an afterthought as a historic champion.Written by DaisyRuth
Now I'm going to be real honest here: I was fully prepared to hate the NXT Women's Championship match between Kendal Grey and Kelani Jordan. I found it to be boring and tedious to watch in its initial stages and there were a couple of weak spots such as a kick that Jordan delivered to Grey that didn't quite connect, or Jordan giving a weak kick out when Grey had her pinned from a belly-to-back GTS. It wasn't until right at the end when I started to come around to this one, and there were two things that really ended up making it for me.First, I was a big fan of seeing Grey and Jordan be given so much time on the show to do their thing between the ropes and show the world what they can do. It's not always commonplace for women in professional wrestling (and especially in WWE) to be given lots of time for a match, so it was a really refreshing change of pace to see Grey and Jordan be given an abundance of time to tell a proper story in the form of a match and get the crowd on board with it.Second, Jordan going over made me pop big time. I wasn't personally convinced that Jordan would be winning the NXT Women's Championship, so it was a really pleasant surprise to see her pin Grey for the three count. Jordan has grown a lot throughout her time in "NXT", has improved immensely as a performer, and is deserving of a reign with the NXT Women's Championship before she inevitably ends up as a member of the main roster sooner rather than later. I'm not always an easy person to change my mind about things, but these two women managed to do it and I'm awfully glad that they did.Written by Olivia Quinlan
