11 Ups & 3 Downs From Last Night's WWE NXT (Nov 13)
Johnny Gargano may be out, but War is still in as NXT makes some huge last-minute TakeOver changes.
Last week's NXT was some achievement, in hindsight.
"In hindsight", because your writer gave the show four downs despite it still being a thoroughly enjoyable broadcast. One that was absolutely lightyears in front of the usual Monday Night Raw/SmackDown churn, but perhaps didn't entirely hold up against prior recent editions in the USA Network, or the competition on the other side.
Away from those metrics and measures, it did a fabulous job juggling the difficult mix of wrestlers fighting alongside each other on the main roster whilst trying to kill each other ahead of "War" on home turf. And Full Sail University was defended with the fire and fury of exactly that - Tommaso Ciampa confirmed once and for all that there was no "main roster" anymore other than the hallowed space they all stood in.
It was all very good, all very gripping, and a noble effort to keep ideas fundamentally at odds from completely fracturing. The ratings spoke to it too; AEW's lead was reduced to a paltry 9,000 as NXT posted 813,000 against Dynamite's 822,000
And as for this week...