8 Ups And 3 Downs From Last Night's NXT (5 Feb)
You're not dreaming.
NXT's getting into a strange pattern these days. Put together a show with hotly-anticipated matches that are advertised well in advance and get our pulses racing in mere anticipation, and it'll deliver a Very-Good-At-Best evening. But throw things together during the week with no real hype or logic and normally, normally, you get a banger.
This week definitely fell into the latter category. After the B+/A- brilliance of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic Final, and the non-starter that was Tegan Nox vs Dakota Kai, this week felt understated by comparison. Nothing on the line, nothing we've been waiting weeks to see, just another episode of NXT TV on the way to TakeOver Portland.
These are usually the situations in which the show thrives, so fans would have been forgiven for letting themselves get slightly carried away. The belatedly confirmed appearance of Charlotte Flair also giving even casual viewers a reason to tune it. Could it deliver? Well, let's find out...