10 Ways NXT Got Its Groove Back
1. It's Fun, Pure And Simple
...for a lot of people, life is just one long, hard kick in the urethra. And sometimes, when you get home from a long day of getting kicked in the urethra, you just want to watch a show about good, likable people who love each other. - Bojack Horseman
Replace "good, likeable people" with "a fun cast of characters" and "love" with "knock the stuffing out of" and you've pretty much nailed the vibe of a modern NXT episode.
If the purpose of wrestling is, as WWE is wont to remind us, to put a smile on people's faces, then NXT fulfils that remit with aplomb. NXT has finally found a happy middle ground between the Serious Business of Triple H's latter-day booking and the neon-splattered lunacy of NXT 2.0 to become a coherent, enjoyable show. The good guys are likeable, the bad guys are hateable (any show that turns Ridge Holland into a heat magnet must be doing something right) and watching them go at it seldom fails to provoke a smile.
Wrestling doesn't always need to be complicated, and watching an episode of NXT is like indulging in a nice helping of comfort food - it may not be fancy, but it's a guaranteed pick-me-up no matter how hard you've been kicked in the urethra.