6 Ups And 2 Downs From Last Night's WWE NXT (May 18)
Women's Division War!
Three weeks out from NXT TakeOver: Revenge, the card for the show is starting to take place. Not only was there a major announcement made about the Samoa Joe versus Finn Balor NXT Championship match, but another rematch from TakeOver: Dallas was signed for the June 8 special.
Beyond that, this was actually one of the better episodes of NXT in a while. The simple structure of NXT's weekly show and (typically) sensible booking made it a breath of fresh air when compared to Raw, but now that Raw is actually better than it's been in a long while, NXT has lost some of what makes it unique. In a sense, Raw is even spoiling us - the length of the show may be tiresome, but it allows for at least two really good matches on any given episode. NXT often can't compete.
This week, things were different. Not only was there some good action on the undercard, but the show featured the best NXT TV match since Samoa Joe versus Sami Zayn. There were a few lousy promos thrown into the mix, but given the overall quality of this episode, they were pretty easy to brush to the side.
Here are 6 ups and 2 downs from this week's NXT broadcast:
8. Downs - An Asuka Music Video, Or Something
NXT Women's Champion Asuka has been absent from TV lately. Her only televised bout since capturing the belt from Bayley at TakeOver: Dallas (April 1, for those who've forgotten), was a way-too-long match against Eva Marie on the show a few weeks back. We've seen Bayley stop by from time to time to remind us that she wants her title back, but the champion has almost been an afterthought.
This week, there was no Asuka, but WWE tried to make up for it with a music video featuring some of her highlights over the past several months. In theory, that works - a hype video shows off a wrestler's greatest hits and reminds fans just how good she is.
Unfortunately, this one devoted an equal amount of video time to the band playing the song, Halestorm. The song itself was just an average example of the kind of music WWE usually picks for its shows, which would have been fine, but the cuts to the video (the singer and guitarist playing, mostly) were really odd.