ORLANDO, Fla. — Heavy Machinery continue to smother the competition in NXT’s tag ranks, with Chris Payne & Sean Maluta becoming the latest team to be demolished by the fun-loving hosses. The 330-pound Otis Dozovic displayed shocking grace, preceding an impactful elbow drop with a Scotty 2 Hotty-esque Worm, while the 320-pound Tucker Knight showed off his agility by spring-boarding into an elbow drop of his own.

Despite Payne & Maluta’s best efforts to muster a comeback, Heavy Machinery could not be stopped, and Dozovic & Knight scored the victory after flattening both men with the Compactor.

Billie Kay might think twice the next time she considers poking fun at Kairi Sane. After catching Kay and Peyton Royce mocking her Princess Pirate garb last week, Sane found vindication, defeating The Femme Fatale in a hard-fought match.

Kay punished the diminutive dynamo throughout much of the contest, even stretching her spine with an Argentinean backbreaker. Yet, showing the grit and resiliency that helped her win the Mae Young Classic, Sane bounced back, slicing Kay with the Interceptor spear, thwacking her with a spinning backfist and finishing her off with the Insane Elbow off the top rope.

Can The Pirate Princess carry that momentum into TakeOver: WarGames, where she will battle Royce, Ember Moon and Nikki Cross in a Fatal 4-Way Match for the vacant NXT Women’s Title?

Andrade “Cien” Almas and Zelina Vega were beaming with confidence following their ambush of NXT Champion Drew McIntyre last week. In a backstage interview, Vega portrayed the attack as simply being the face-to-face challenge that McIntyre had been requesting all along. The diabolical business manager then declared that nobody can touch the “new” Andrade, while the challenger promised to dethrone McIntyre in 10 days at TakeOver: WarGames.

Foppish and outlandish though he may be, Velveteen Dream is not to be taken lightly, as he proved against Cezar Bononi. The vainglorious Superstar made short work of the physically imposing Bononi, tearing into him with the ferocity of a wild animal. Velveteen Dream handily picked up the victory after planting the 6-foot-7, 255-pound Bononi with a Death Valley bomb.

Afterward, the Dream grabbed a microphone and sent a message to his rival, Aleister Black, pledging to make Black say his name when they do battle at TakeOver: WarGames on Saturday, Nov. 18.

With the return of WarGames less than two weeks away, Adam Cole looked to make Roderick Strong pay dearly for his decision to snub The Undisputed ERA before both Superstars enter the three-team fray at NXT TakeOver.

The Undisputed ERA’s master manipulator fired everything he had at Strong, wearing him down with submission holds, drilling him with hard strikes and even using the referee as a distraction. Yet, Strong refused to stay down no matter the attack that Cole launched his way. As Cole struggled to find new ways to batter his rival, Strong turned the tides, rattling Cole with a leaping knee to the face before downing him with a jaw-dropping backbreaker onto the top turnbuckle.

Sensing that their cocksure captain was in danger of suffering a clear-cut loss, Undisputed ERA members Kyle O’Reilly & Bobby Fish ran to ringside and dragged an exhausted Strong out of the ring, prompting the referee to signal for the bell.

The fight, however, was far from over. Soon, they were joined by Strong’s partners for WarGames, The Authors of Pain, as well as the third WarGames squadron, SAnitY. A brief standoff gave way to an all-out brawl, with all nine Superstars throwing haymakers. The action spilled outside the ring, and Strong superplexed Cole from the top turnbuckle to the floor, wiping out all three teams in the process.

As the NXT Universe heartily chanted “NXT” and bodies lay strewn around the ring, it grew apparent that WarGames is the only structure dangerous enough to settle this three-way rivalry.