4 Ups And 4 Downs From WWE NXT DEADL1NE
The Iron Survivor Challenge makes its debut; Breakker defends; New Day, new champs?
NXT as its own brand is a decade old, and it still can’t decide what it wants to be.
Technically, it’s a developmental territory for WWE, training the next generation of wrestlers for the main roster. That’s become more apparent during the past year as they shed a lot of independent talent and have focused more on younger superstars.
But they can’t help themselves trying to deliver these epic matches that would rival what you see on Raw, SmackDown or a main roster PLE. And that’s what we saw with NXT DEADL1NE, the last big show of the year.
NXT introduced a new match concept, the Iron Survivor Challenge, which produced mixed results. Overall, both matches were good, with the men’s being more dramatic and fun, while the women’s felt more like a collection of spots loosely tied together by Roxanne Perez’s journey.
New Day and Pretty Deadly were a riot, and hopefully we’ll see more of the two teams interacting.
However, Bron Breakker’s NXT Championship reign continues to be defined by these attempts at big, dramatic title matches. As gifted as he clearly is, Breakker is still young and not yet able to pull these off. This is where that “NXT can’t decide what it wants to be” become apparent. You can’t keep throwing young talent out there asking for stuff you expect from 10-year veterans.
We’ll give DEADL1NE passing marks for delivering overall, but it would be nice if we knew what we were supposed to be experiencing.
Let’s get to it…