Apollo Crews vs. JD McDonagh

[6.0] "This is indeed a small statement by Apollo Crews against a highly touted opponent who already saw himself in the title picture with Bron Breakker. Technically, it's solid and even quite lively in the final third, until the actual finish falls a bit short of expectations. A decent TV match."

[8.0] "The chemistry is so natural, and that surely improved the fight's quality. Great action, pace, and creativity. That new persona of Apollo Crews is really cool to witness. He's a better wrestler when he's a babyface. McDonagh's heelwork was surely a good contrast, even though it lacked of his nasty limbwork. It was also a good test of strength, and Crews certainly won at this challenge. McDonagh can give a good fight to anyone, and here's the proof. Nonetheless, Crews isn't anybody, and worked his ass off to showcase himself really well. I saw critics about his new finisher. I have to admit that I've seen much worse as a finisher. Great TV contest, by the way."

[7.0] "Athleticism and love for his work, every movement was bright and everything was done as it should be. A very good schedule of carrying out your movements and beautiful blows to different points of the body into action. I love this style in non-stop sequences and with role-based exchanges of initiative. As a result, a big victory for the newly returned Apollo Crews."

[6.0] "Decent match but there were way too many wasted moments here. The finishing stretch was also way too long and was never really built up properly."

[7.0] "Firstly, Apollo has to improve his set of signature moves. A single hand spinebuster is not the best final shot of a wrestler. It sits well as one of the signature strikes, but not the final strike. Apart from that, the chemistry these two created was darn cool to see as both men busted out sick moves and flowed the pace really high & tight. McDonagh is an excellent wrestler, but he overstayed in the mainstream story and it's about time to experience freshness. Apollo surely brings that aspect after being teased for a while and the inevitable showdown b/w Bron & Apollo looks awesome on paper. 3.5 out of 5 stars!"

[6.0] "The finish seemed a bit odd and hardly built up to, but other than that, this was a really good match. 6/10 breads"

[8.0] "Really good match between McDonagh and Crews here which had no reason to be this good but obviously was going to be as they're both excellent workers with experience who know how to work on TV and connected superbly together, not a classic for the ages but just an excellent TV match which is very easy to watch and was the match of the night without a shadow of a doubt ahead of the two championship matches. McDonagh has been on a crazy run since he arrived in NXT, it took a while to get going with a disappointing match against Breakker but now he's completely in his element and giving us bangers every week. Clearly one of the best workers in the brand, one of the best acts in NXT and one of the most relevant, there's a reason he gets so much character development and match time anyway so I'm not surprised. He and Crews did the show here, this was some good stuff."

[9.0] "One of the best match of NXT as of late. The only strange thing for me was the finisher of Apollo but, until that, we have high spots, frantic pace and the crowd totally involved in it!"

[8.0] "Great match but I don't get them beating JD here. After putting Dragunov and Axiom on the shelf in recent weeks to really build him and his gimmick up he just loses clean and without using the targeted, surgeon like offense that he's been utilising to great effect? I just don't get it. As I said though, this was still a great match that was well paced and had lots of nice, smooth offense. Honestly this is the most I've ever enjoyed a Crews match and JD is excellent."

[8.0] "Decent match; great performance from both guys; Apollo's finisher however looks pretty unsatisfying, his previous one was way better. Now it looks like we are getting Bron vs Apollo at Deadline, which can easily be a heavyweight banger."