I am really surprised I didn't hear more hype about this. I loved it. Maybe I am being contrarian, but this was my favorite match between the two in NXT. I thought the early limb work and joint manipulation was fantastic. The pacing was almost WOS-esque (at least a pretty hard nod to the style/era). The counters were great. This had hatred and malice, even for a Dunne match. Bate's ear is bleeding. They pace things out nicely. The reverses and counters all make sense. I really liked a lot of the little things they did. The hand work comes back in key spots, with Bate not being able to keep a grip in a pin or needing to sell it after delivering a massive right hand. My only small thing is that they did go a little heavy on the big moves for my personal taste later in the match. I was enjoying more the gritty close combat stuff, but I thought they set up the logic of their dynamic well in a way that kept everything coherent. Bate is more athletically gifted, but Dunne has his number because he is tactical and takes advantage of Bate's youthful mistakes. They played that up perfectly to the very end.

 

****1/2

The opening matwork is good. It eventually breaks down to them throwing more strikes with Dunne mockingly kicking Bate in the head in an attempt to get under his skin. Dunne's facials are great. I love his smackable smirk. Bate on the other hand, can look a tad hokey. Many of the spots here are recycled from their last match. I love that X-plex to standing shooting star sequence so much that I can't really say that them redoing it here is a complaint. Also that superplex on the outside was something I don't think I have seen before.

 

Great match, although it's missing the magic of their previous two encounters and them going into overkill territory with the 2.9 counts didn't help things either.

 

★★★★