10 Problems Nobody Wants To Admit About NXT
4. Formulaic Main Roster Booking
There is a General Manager in place in NXT, and it's a good job William Regal is so great in the role - his is a fair, warm, authoritative presence - because he doesn't always perform that role every week.
Too often, there is no main event set. This was the case on the December 4 show, on which the main event was set up in the second segment, revealing a plot hole creative falls into every Monday night. On the same show, Rhea Ripley up and decided to cancel her match with Dakota Kai in order to allow Mia Yim a measure of revenge, which was nice of her, but where did she gain that power? Did Regal sign off on a dangerous beating backstage? This bait-and-switch chicanery advanced a storyline, but with no elegance nor consideration to realism.
It's boilerplate main roster copy that NXT gets away with, because those main events are invariably very good and consequential, but it's difficult to escape the idea that these performers are following a script. That script in itself barely bothers to pretend that a card of matches is set to occur, which asks reasonable questions of what exactly would have happened, had a wrestler not said something that instigated the action. The only, immersion-breaking answer is: Well, it's in the script...
NXT is creatively lazy and rote, but the talent is antithetical to - and thus elevates and transcends - that in-house booking.
Unless...