{"id":53232,"date":"2017-12-29T00:48:40","date_gmt":"2017-12-29T06:48:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=53232"},"modified":"2017-12-29T00:48:40","modified_gmt":"2017-12-29T06:48:40","slug":"nxt-hits-misses-12-27-ember-moon-defends-sonya-deville-lars-vs-gargano-vs-aleister-vs-killian-dane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2017\/12\/29\/nxt-hits-misses-12-27-ember-moon-defends-sonya-deville-lars-vs-gargano-vs-aleister-vs-killian-dane\/","title":{"rendered":"NXT HITS &#038; MISSES 12\/27: Ember Moon defends against Sonya Deville, Lars vs. Gargano vs. Aleister vs. Killian Dane"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-1988990634\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p>This week\u2019s episode unfortunately seemed lackluster.\u00a0 There was not the usual energy level that one would expect from a NXT show.\u00a0 The crowd was into it, but not the performers.\u00a0 It seemed rather rushed with only three matches, only one promo\/interview, and half of the show was the main event.\u00a0 It was surprising that one of the matches this week was a championship match, which was rather irrelevant.\u00a0 Hopefully this is because it was the end of the year show and there is more exciting things to come in the New Year.<\/p>\n<h3><b>HITS<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><b>The Fatal Four-Way Qualifying Match for the No. 1 Contender Match for the NXT Championship (Lars Sullivan vs. Johnny Gargano vs. Aleister Black vs. Killian Dain):\u00a0<\/b>Overall, this was a decent match.\u00a0 It definitely had some great characteristics of what would make a great match, mainly from a storytelling element.\u00a0 Johnny Gargano was definitely the star of this match.\u00a0 He once again played the underdog going up against competitors bigger and stronger while prevailing in the end.\u00a0 It was a nice touch seeing Killian Dain and Lars Sullivan going at it, especially when Dain hit a splash on Sullivan on the announcers\u2019 table.\u00a0 Aleister Black performed well and it will be interesting to see where the angle with Undisputed Era (mainly Adam Cole) goes after they attacked him, which basically led to him being defeated and pinned by Gargano.\u00a0 This was a great way to cap off a story of redemption for Gargano, who went from just having \u201cgreat matches\u201d to winning and becoming the number one contender.\u00a0 Now, will he win the title? I doubt it, as he is mainly just a placeholder for a future potential challenger, in addition to having unfinished business with Tomasso Ciampo (whenever he returns).<\/p>\n<h3><b>MISSES<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><b>Sonya Deville vs. Ember Moon (NXT Woman\u2019s Championship Match):\u00a0<\/b>This match seemed rather pointless.\u00a0 Sonya Deville has already been called up to the main roster and has been performing there for a little while now, so it would be hard to believe that she was really going to win the belt and go back up to the Raw roster with it.\u00a0 Overall, the match lacked energy, especially coming from Deville, as she seemed uninspired.\u00a0 She was not her usual striking self and put up very little offense.\u00a0 Ember Moon performed well, but once again, very low energy.\u00a0 This match should have been much more competitive between these two, instead it came off more as a filler match that was killing time for the main event match of the night.\u00a0 The only compelling factor came at the end of the match when Kairi Sane made an appearance at the top of the entrance ramp to make her intentions known that she wanted a title shot only to be attacked by Shayna Baszler in ruthless fashion that will ultimately set up a future collision of the three in the coming New Year.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK&#8217;S COLUMN:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2017\/12\/21\/nxt-hits-misses-12-20-sanity-vs-fish-oreilly-nxt-tag-titles-bate-vs-dunne-uk-title-roderick-strong-vs-lars-sullivan\/\">NXT HITS &amp; MISSES 12\/20: Sanity vs. Fish &amp; O\u2019Reilly for NXT Tag Titles, Bate vs. Dunne for UK Title, Roderick Strong vs. Lars Sullivan<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-2758080053\"><div id=\"pwtor-887442135\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>This week\u2019s episode unfortunately seemed lackluster.\u00a0 There was not the usual energy level that one would expect from a NXT show.\u00a0 The crowd was into it, but not the performers.\u00a0 It seemed rather rushed with <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2017\/12\/29\/nxt-hits-misses-12-27-ember-moon-defends-sonya-deville-lars-vs-gargano-vs-aleister-vs-killian-dane\/\" title=\"NXT HITS &#038; MISSES 12\/27: Ember Moon defends against Sonya Deville, Lars vs. Gargano vs. Aleister vs. Killian Dane\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,28,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opnionandanalysis","category-specialists_hitsandmisses","category-specialists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/post\/2016\/07\/EmberMoonAthena_3x2TG.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53232"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53233,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53232\/revisions\/53233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}