Adam Cole's NXT Championship Defences Ranked From Worst To Best
An Undisputed Era.
If you're the sort of person that enjoys these specific arguments, you could have one about Adam Cole being the 2019 wrestler of the year. Yet only half of that period was spent holding gold.
Before actually winning the NXT Championship at June's TakeOver: XXV, he'd already assembled a few contenders for Match Of The Year, including one that many have already marked as one of the single greatest clashes in the history of the company.
That iconic TakeOver: New York battle with Johnny Gargano won't feature here of course, but it feels worthy of noting just how ready Cole was to wear the black-and-gold brand's top prize before he was actually strapped. He'd elevated the brand new North American Championship in much the same way his Undisputed Era stable had the tag belts, and the show simply felt unfinished without him atop it.
Cole was the sort of heel Champion that felt...right. A one you willed to lose in the moment, but were glad to still have in the aftermath. If his career follows form for the show's traditional booking and this title rich history, he might be a one-and-done with the belt too. But 403 brilliant, brutal and - most recently - bizarre days later, what legacy will the best and worst of his title defences leave behind?
12. Velveteen Dream (TakeOver: In Your House)
This wasn't good.
Despite the label already existing in canon thanks to the Roddy Piper/Goldust scrap at WrestleMania XII, a 'Backlot Brawl' stipulation served as the latest failed cinematic wrestling effort from a company that - on fist-clenched balance - got it right twice.
This was a long, long way from the Firefly Fun House match but just as far removed from The Boneyard Match, despite it being the exact formula they should have followed.
When the thing wasn't illogical, it was simply boring. Adam Cole the sly fox drove a f*cking monster truck, undercutting how class Dream looked with his Walking Dead homage. But better than than a bunch of worked punches in a badly lit ring or cheap-looking film set out behind the Full Sail backdoors. It was if somebody's backdoor's sh*t this concept out, if not for the result. Cole thankfully retained, ensuring that his record-breaking reign wouldn't lost to yet another project failed by the company's less-than-stellar handling of the global b*stard.