15 Exact Moments Wrestlers Died Inside
13. Kaitlyn Knows It Sucked
NXT was positively awful at its absolute worst, but enough about Adam Cole and Johnny Gargano's Three Stages of Hell match; this entry will instead focus on the all-women's season of NXT during its early phase as a glorified game show.
God, this was ugly. Michael Cole and his various commentary cohorts would basically spend the entire hour giggling, being snarky, amusing themselves, and generally taking the piss out of the women for daring to improve at their craft. This was quite possibly the least effective attempt at promotion ever. But it wasn't an attempt at promotion. It was banter for the boy's club masquerading as a web series.
The first two seasons were hardly Bruno Sammartino Vs. Larry Zbysko. Cole et al. clearly delighted in mocking the "rookies" who were sent out there to drown to see if they could somehow still afloat. But the misogyny rife in the third season was horrendous. At least Cole thought the male rookies were merely bad; he could scarcely believe that the women were even trying to wrestle. CM Punk, incidentally, was his guest once. He might have genuinely changed, but he didn't come off as supporter of women's wrestling when he did an ironic Jim Ross voice to mock "the damndest spear I ever seen".
In the most infamous match of the season, during which Cole was so sure it was going to be worthless that he took a phone call during it, Kaitlyn lost to Maxine. It was botched beyond belief because neither wrestler had any business being in the ring. Kaitlyn knew it.
Seeing her roll her eyes in embarrassment as soon as the bell sounded was real bleak.