4 Ups & 6 Downs From WWE NXT New Year's Evil (Review)

A broken ring rope and stealing the 1994 Royal Rumble finish 'highlight' the show.

Jinder Mahal
WWE.com

NXT New Year’s Evil was a case study in what happens when you throw way too many booking tricks and shortcuts into the mix – you end up with a jumbled mess.

The developmental brand’s first big show of 2023 featured a few decent moments, but nothing was a standout, and the in-ring action was decent at best overall. Even the only title match on the night didn’t get a clean finish, instead being used to set up a rematch at the PLE next month.

But consider that we got a retread of the 1994 Royal Rumble finish, a broken rope factoring into the NXT Championship match, a tag team beating up another team and taking their place to seemingly earn a title shot, a return promo that could have been written by a narcoleptic child, and shoddy matches that had little business being on a “marquee” wrestling program.

Despite firing Mandy Rose, NXT still can’t seem to move on from Toxic Attraction. Instead of having the remaining members step back, maybe get a new gimmick or at least cool off a bit, they’ve decided to go the Poochie route and push them harder. And it’s not working.

Let’s get to it…

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.