NXT No Mercy 2025: Ricky Saints Takes the Throne; Je'Von Evans Keeps Coming

Evans and Briggs take the simplest useful story on the card and execute it with almost no waste. Briggs is bigger, meaner and convinced Evans has been rewarded for potential rather than results. So he spends most of the match turning the younger wrestler's body into evidence. Backbreakers, lariats, boots and power counters repeatedly stop Evans before the match can become another athletic exhibition.

Evans' job is to survive without making Briggs look foolish. He sells the power, keeps his comebacks short and uses speed only when it creates a real opening. The final sequence is the best part: Briggs tries another elevated power attack, Evans counters into the Cutter, then lands the top-rope OG Cutter for the clean win.

Canton gives the match four stars, Meltzer's reported rating is 4.25 and Cagematch currently sits at 7.62 from more than 200 votes. WrestleFile lands at A / 9.0 because the match gives Evans a needed PLE victory and tells a coherent power-versus-resilience story for sixteen minutes. It stops below full A because several sequences are designed more around spectacular counters than escalating desperation.

The replacement challenger and five-minute clock leave Ruca and Parker trying to create a championship match in the amount of time most pay-per-view bouts spend on entrances and camera cuts. They respond by sprinting: quick pin attempts, a dive, a Samoan Drop, Hipnotic on the floor and the constant on-screen countdown making every decision feel rushed by design.

The problem is that the match then spends precious seconds on Zaria and Lash Legend at ringside. Parker hits Hipnotic outside, gets distracted by the secondary feud, and Ruca has enough time to recover and hit the Soul Snatcher at 4:48. The finish makes storyline sense and also proves why five-minute championship matches struggle to feel complete.

Canton gives it 2.75 stars while Meltzer's reported rating is 1.75. Cagematch does not make the match eligible for its matchguide because it runs under five minutes. WrestleFile lands at C / 6.4. The wrestlers maximize the pace and the Soul Snatcher remains spectacular, but the format and distractions prevent anything resembling a developed title match.

The Weaponized Steel Cage threatens to become a parody before the match even starts because virtually every object in the building appears eligible for employment. Grace and Monroe make it work by keeping the violence attached to their feud. Blake targets Grace's injured hand, uses the cage, kendo sticks and a hair dryer cord, then cuts Grace's hair. The weapons are ridiculous. The intent is not.

The decorative diamonds are the match's most obvious excess, but even there the wrestlers avoid turning them into the entire finish. The escalation eventually climbs the cage, returns to the ropes and ends with Grace hitting an Air Raid Crash through a table. It feels appropriately final after weeks of attacks between them.

Reception is unusually split. Canton goes 3.75 stars and Cagematch currently sits at 7.70 from more than 230 votes, while Hall strongly dislikes the match and Meltzer's reported rating is only three stars. WrestleFile lands at A- / 8.5. The match is overdecorated, but its best violence remains personal and the finish delivers. The disagreement does not require splitting the difference.

Page versus Heights is the match on the card most likely to be mistaken for a strong Tuesday-night television segment, and that is both compliment and limitation. Page immediately attacks the back and spends the match forcing Heights to prove that amateur explosiveness can survive veteran control. Heights gets the expected comeback and the Ankle Lock tease, but the champion never feels genuinely close to losing.

The finish is clean and efficient. Page counters Heights from the ropes, hits the middle-rope powerslam and follows with Twisted Grin to retain. Nothing is wrong with it. Nothing asks to be remembered six months later.

Cagematch currently rates the match 6.17 from 179 votes, Canton goes 3.25 stars and Meltzer's reported rating is 2.75. WrestleFile lands at B- / 7.3 because the back work, Page's veteran control and Heights' athletic comeback are all sound. The lack of believable title jeopardy keeps it firmly below the stronger matches.

Vice and Jayne work a better match than the crowd initially gives them. Jayne controls on the mat and outside, Vice uses the striking bursts that make her offense feel different from the rest of the division, and the match gradually earns stronger reactions as the near falls arrive.

Then the championship story becomes familiar. Vice appears to have the title won, Fallon Henley pulls the referee out and gets ejected, Jayne nearly loses control again, and a hooded figure attacks Vice at ringside before Jayne finishes with Rolling Encore. The finish preserves the champion and continues the Fatal Influence ecosystem. It also makes another Jacy title defense feel dependent on rescue.

Cagematch currently sits at 7.17 from 194 votes, while Canton's and Meltzer's reported ratings both land at 3.5 stars. WrestleFile goes B+ / 8.0. The match itself is strong and the final stretch works; the repeated interference pattern keeps it from becoming a more satisfying championship performance.

The main event succeeds because Saints never needs the match to pretend he is physically equal to Femi. Oba throws him around, cuts off dives, lands the chokeslam and repeatedly turns Ricky's momentum into another demonstration of the champion's power. Saints survives by changing angles and refusing to let one failed attack become the end of the match.

The announce-table sequence is awkward and visibly cramped, but the closing stretch recovers immediately. Saints counters the powerbomb into the table DDT, survives Fall From Grace back in the ring and then turns another attempt into the sequence that finally opens the door. Multiple DDTs later, the champion stays down and Saints wins clean.

The clean finish is the match's greatest strength. Femi does not lose because TNA interferes, because a manager betrays him or because the referee misses something. NXT simply decides that Ricky Saints is ready to beat its most protected champion. Cagematch currently rates the match 7.38 from 216 votes; Canton and Meltzer both land around 3.5-to-3.75-star territory, while Pro Wrestling Dot Net readers vote it best match of the show.

WrestleFile lands at A- / 8.8. The title change, closing stretch and clear passing-of-the-torch result are excellent. The match stops short of a straight A because the middle does not build quite enough urgency and the ringside table sequence is clumsier than a championship main event should be.