8 Ups & 9 Downs For WWE NXT In 2020
3. Getting Back To Basics
For all the negatives in the other half of this article, NXT deserves immense credit for pulling away from the disheartening booking excesses of the summer right as TakeOver: XXX approached.
Karrion Kross' ascension was inevitable no matter how much Keith Lee brave-faced it. A multi-man ladder match was convoluted as f*ck in the planning stages but played out like a TakeOver banger of old on the night. Io Shirai and Dakota Kai assembled Shirai's most underrated defence of 2020, and the fabulously-built Adam Cole/Pat McAfee battle was one of the headline-grabbers from the entire year of wrestling in any company. The man who was a millionaire in seven disciplines looked like he was about to make it eight, all while helpfully babyfacing the now belt-less Undisputed Era leader.
He was so good that it would be unfair to simply use this segment without talking more about the work of the special guest himself. "Special" being the operative word here...