A new North American Champion in Roderick Strong and a bevy of quality matches and returns made this week’s debut of NXT on USA a bonafide hit. Make no mistake AEW will have their hands full in a few weeks.
Matches:
Women’s Title #1 Contender’s Match: Candice LeRae vs. Bianca Belair vs. Mia Yim vs. Io Shirai: Hurricanrana Variation and a Moonsault From LeRae got her the win in the short, but fun opener.
Cameron Grimes vs. Sean Maluta: WOW, Grimes got the squash win over The always game Maluta courtesy of the Running Double Stomp.
Roderick Strong vs. North American Champion The Velveteen Dream: Interference from Kyle O’Reilly allowed Strong, who worked on Dream’s back throughout the match, to hit the End of Heartache for the win and the title.
Pete Dunne vs. Arturo Ruas: Solid back and worth with some strikes, submissions and Suplexes. Dunne won with the Finger Stretches.
Aliyah vs. Xia Li: LI got the quick win with the Windmill Kick.
Denzel Dejournette vs. Kushida: This match never got started as Imperium showed up and took out DD, but Kushida had some luck against Walter before he escaped.
Cruiserweight #1 Contender’s Match: Lio Rush vs. Oney Lorcan: Excellent back and forth as Rush beat the game Lorcan with a Standing Spanish Fly and his Signature Frog Splash.
Street Fight: Matt Riddle vs. Killian Dain: This ended in a no-contest as two dozen members of the NXT brand got
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports.
Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders.
His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023.
Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief.
Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale.
Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.
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