It was a jam-packed Tuesday of wrestling action. "WWE NXT" ran against "AEW Dynamite Grand Slam Paris," which left the Wrestling Inc. Staff with plenty to talk about. There are already results over on the NXT results page as well as the AEW Dynamite Grand Slam Paris results page.As for now, it's time to debrief from watching two shows at once. The Wrestling Inc. Staff have plenty of thoughts, from the disappointing nature of "NXT" to the tremendous highs of the Grand Slam main event. I'm sure there's plenty you want to talk about as well, which is why the comments section will be open, like it always is.Enough of my talking; it's been a long enough night as it is. Let's get into the best and the worst from the rematch of the Wednesday Night Wars.
It's not really a secret at this point that Kendal Grey is one of the best wrestlers, not just in "WWE NXT," but in the entire company, and the fact that she is injured really is a massive shame heading into the final few months of the year where "NXT" has some very big shows like Halloween Havoc and the yet-to-be-announced Deadline.It's because of how good she is that WWE clearly wants Grey to remain a presence on TV, and has been having these therapy sessions to help her deal with being injured, but if you ask me, the fact that this week was the final session was a true blessing because this was bad. It was actually worse than last week and we hated it then as well, and no this isn't us here at Wrestling Inc. running out of ideas and nit-picking stuff for the love of the game, this my friends, was bad.By this point, it's been well-established that WWE officials have seen Grey and thought that the best character we can give her is someone who loves wrestling so much that when she can't wrestle, she needs to go to therapy. That's just a bad character to begin with, but putting her in these situations when in reality, she is still very green to all the non-wrestling bits of the business just exposes her flaws even more. She's not the best on the mic, so don't give her too much to say. She hasn't got a fleshed out character that works in backstage skits, so don't put her in backstage skits that make her look like less of a wrestling character and more like a bad actress.You know what you do instead? You just don't have her on TV. You don't have her relay this awful dialogue that she's really tried to memorize so she can put some half-hearted emotion into it. You actually let her rest up and heal so that when she does eventually come back and inevitably challenge for the top prizes again, people will be like "Yeah, there's that great wrestler we know and love!" Not "Yeah, there's that woman who had those weird therapy sessions no one wanted!"To top it all off, the fact that the therapist himself basically just called the whole thing off at the end was quite funny because, and I'm no medical expert or nothing, but I'm pretty certain that's not how it works. Therapists aren't meant to just say "Alright you're all better now bye." Either way, the silver lining is we don't have to hear from these sessions for the foreseeable future.Written by Sam Palmer
I initially wasn't so sure about ROH World Champion Bandido's match against Kofi tonight. While, of course, it was going to be a banger and I knew I was going to love the in-ring action, I didn't expect Bandido to lose the title, and I didn't think Kofi should be taking a singles loss. I realized quickly, however, that this match was really just meant to continue Bandido, "Hangman" Adam Page, and Brody King's feud with New Level and Swerve Strickland for the AEW World Trios Championships. And I'm here for it.It started with King and Austin Creed at ringside for their respective tag team partners, but Strickland arrived with Prince Nana, bringing out Page. The two stared daggers at each other from opposite sides of the ring, and things almost escalated into a brawl. That near-fight distracted Kofi enough that Bandido was able to hit the 21-plex for the victory.I thought maybe this would go further in the direction of dissension between New Level and Strickland, but King also was almost scolding Page after the match. He could be heard telling "Hangman," "this is what matters," while pointing to the ROH World title and Bandido. I loved the fact that even though Bandido won off the distraction, King is still concerned about Page getting involved with Strickland, and things could also be rocky between them. Page losing a good relationship because of his hatred toward his biggest rival would be another good beat in their story.Later on, it was revealed that New Level and Strickland will be defending their titles in a rematch against Brodido and Page at WrestleDream. Instead of being upset that Strickland offered up a rematch, Kofi and Creed said they had a better idea and put forth the two-out-of-three falls stipulation. It was interesting to me that New Level didn't seem upset with Strickland at all, despite Kofi's title loss, and it'll be interesting to see where they go from here.While some fans are ready for the champions to move on from Brodido and Page, I personally quite like this. I love the dynamic between Page and Strickland, and I really love that this match isn't just a straight-up singles rematch. I feel like we don't often see two-out-of-three-falls matches in AEW, and this is going to be one heck of a bout between these two teams at WrestleDream.Written by Daisy Ruth
Before I actually get into why this segment didn't really land for me, the "Grayson Waller Rub." That either sounds like a hot sauce that you wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole, or something you would have to see a specialist about.Anyway, heel Myles Borne is up for there for me as one of the most boring characters on the entire "WWE NXT" roster. I understand that there was always going to be a story between him and Tavion Heights given their turbulent year as a duo that ultimately led to Borne turning on his former partner back at Heatwave, but the charisma vacuum that arrives on screen whenever Borne has come out since that night at the end of August is one that is impossible to get behind for me. Don't get me wrong, I like him in the ring, but he has a natural underdog spirit that WWE officials are foolish to not capitalize on.On top of that, he's come out on this episode of "NXT" to confront Grayson Waller, another heel, to step up and try and be the guy to take the WWE NXT Championship from the Aussie...why? Sure, you can argue that because Tony D'Angelo came out almost immediately, the whole point of the segment was to get to setting up Borne vs. D'Angelo for next week, but you could have done that either backstage with a more careful setup, or simply without Waller in the ring because he didn't add anything to this segment either.I actually felt a little sorry for D'Angelo by the time he started cutting his promo because he actually sounded interesting and came across as a legit contender, only to play second fiddle to Borne trying his best to get hated on. Then came the loaded punch, which I didn't even know was a loaded punch until Vic Joseph pointed it out and there were quarters everywhere. I initially thought D'Angelo had lost all his teeth for a second, which would have at least made Borne look like as much of a heel as he possibly could, but when your loaded punch is so not loaded that it literally has to be explained to you, it wasn't a very good punch.Obviously, I do have a little bit of sympathy for those writing "NXT" because Mason Rook is injured, and he was more than likely going to be the next challenger to Waller at Halloween Havoc, so all of these plans the company had were forced to be chopped, changed, and thrown around. But that doesn't excuse segments and characters being poorly written, and this was an example of both.Written by Sam Palmer
I had no idea what to expect from Shido Ash and Viktor Zanov in their first-round match for the 2026 Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic against Hank Walker and Tank Ledger. In full honesty, the only thing that I really knew about either man was that Ash was currently in a relationship with Tiffany Stratton thanks to social media. I have to say, after seeing both Ash and Zanov in the ring tonight, they both impressed me in their first showing on "NXT".Ash and Zanov are one of those pairings that I think have a lot of potential as both a tag team and as singles wrestlers. While they do need a little more experience and seasoning to realize said potential, they're off to a good start based on what they showed that they can do in the ring. Ash and Zanov's hard-hitting in-ring styles worked well with Walker and Ledger's similar styles, and their more serious characters also played really well off Walker and Ledger's more fun and carefree characters to make for a really interesting contrast. On an episode of "NXT" where not much really stood out to me, Ash and Zanov were the highlight of this show, and I'm excited to see what comes next for both men.Written by Olivia Quinlan
WWE has been hell-bent on counter-programming AEW for the past few years, and certainly in recent memory, with WWE x AAA World Collide running in the same vicinity as AEW All Out in the Chicago area. Then, there was all the discourse about WWE then airing the show on YouTube during AEW's special tribute episode of "AEW Dynamite" for the late Pac. So, it's confusing to me why WWE chose to punt this time around. It's like they didn't even try.We've seen before that WWE has brought in big stars, like Cody Rhodes, into "NXT" to try and counter-program AEW when they've aired at the same time on the odd Tuesday, in the post-"Wednesday Night Wars" era. That wasn't the case tonight. "Grand Slam: France" also had a total of four title matches, and while none of those titles changed hands, they were still really good matches. "NXT" had zero titles on the line. Not even the North American titles were defended.The battle royale to determine the next challenger for NXT Women's Champion Kelani was a really fun main event, and featured stars from the main roster, TNA, AAA, and "WWE EVOLVE," but certainly no big enough names to take away from "Dynamite." Outside of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic continuing, and even those matches had lesser-known teams, there was nothing to write home about on "NXT."While there were some newsworthy, and certainly fun, bits to "NXT," it's surprising, after everything that's gone on in very recent memory, that WWE chose to punt, especially for a pre-recorded episode of "Dynamite." Maybe the powers that be were smart enough to finally realize that folks are going to watch what they want to watch no matter what, or can get caught up later. I'd say maybe "NXT" is no longer a priority, but we've also often seen WWE use the developmental brand's premium live events to go up against AEW events. Tonight was certainly a head-scratcher on WWE's end, and it'll be interesting to see how it plays out in the ratings.Written by Daisy Ruth
Will Ospreay vs. Kazuchika Okada turned out exactly how I envisioned it, and that's not a bad thing. The pair traded hard hits and finishers. Ospreay, per usual, took flight as well.I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about Okada kicking out of a Rainmaker at one, but the move definitely kept the crowd buzzing. The near falls kept us on the edge of our seats, too.For Ospreay, the bout turned out exactly how he hoped it would. After All Out, he presented Okada, the AEW International Champion, with an opportunity to challenge him for the world title at Grand Slam France, with the intentional audience in mind. On a personal level, Ospreay also sought to rectify his past losses to Okada, and Tuesday night, he did just that.In a way, Ospreay's win tonight felt poetic. With Okada, who boasted an overwhelming win-loss record over "The Aerial Assassin," now also in the rearview mirror, Ospreay can pivot his focus to fresh challengers in a fresh stipulation at WrestleDream. I'm still not exactly sure what to expect from a Clockwork Carnage match, but a lineup consisting of Ospreay and Samoa Joe so far sounds promising.Written by Ella Jay
