WWE NXT Stars Invade SmackDown Live, Go Undefeated

One night after four of WWE NXT's top stars made surprise appearances on RAW, those same stars [...]

By Ryan Droste

One night after four of WWE NXT's top stars made surprise appearances on RAW, those same stars showed up on SmackDown Live.

Aleister Black, Tommaso Ciampa, Johnny Gargano, and Ricochet were all revealed during SmackDown's opening segment to be taking part in matches on the Tuesday night broadcast. This time, the company did a much better job introducing them to the audience.

On Monday night, the four stars were mentioned by Triple H in the middle of the ring while Michael Cole read some prepared lines about each one. When they came out for their matches, the performers largely received ambivalent reactions from the Lafayette, Louisiana crowd. That's not all that surprising given the fact that it's a relatively small percentage of WWE's crowd (statistically, less than half) that watches NXT on the WWE Network.

It was surprising that WWE didn't have their fantastic video production department make some slick video packages to introduce the four stars, but they didn't make that mistake twice. There were hype videos for each star that aired on SmackDown and each of them received a much better reaction from the crowd Tuesday night in New Orleans.

The first member of the NXT crew in action on Tuesday night was Aleister Black, who took on Andrade. One of the more intriguing aspects of this match was the fact that Zelina Vega, Andrade's manager, is Black's wife off the air.

The two had a very good television match, which was one by Black and improved NXT's record to 4-0 over the course of two nights against their WWE main roster counterparts.

The second match featured NXT North American Champion Johnny Gargano and NXT Champion Tommaso Ciampa taking on The Bar (Cesaro and Sheamus). The bout was set up immediately prior during a backstage segment where the two teams encountered each other. Gargano told the team that they didn't come to SmackDown to set the bar, they came to break the bar.

These teams had another good, competitive match. There was a scary moment, though, when Ciampa executed a sunset flip out of the corner and his knee buckled. Immediate reports from backstage following the match said that he's okay, though he will surely be evaluated further. The referee threw up an "X" to signal a legitimate injury following a spot.

In the end, the NXT team went over in the win column as Ciampa, following a blind tag, came into the match and executed a back slide on Cesaro for the victory.

In the final NXT vs. SmackDown match of the night, Ricochet went one on one with Eric Young of Sanity, which was a rather surprising move considering Young hasn't wrestled on SmackDown since September. Ricochet showed off his acrobatic skills early, but Young took advantage following some distractions by his Sanity teammates (Killian Dain and Alexander Wolfe) on the outside.

Young was busted open during the match, and as he bled from the side of his head and rolled to the outside, Ricochet hit a beautiful back flip to the outside and followed that up with a 630 splash back in the ring for the victory.

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