4 Ups And 6 Downs From NXT Vengeance Day

2. A Lot Of Bashing And Smashing

NXT Vengeance Day 2023 Bron Breakker Grayson Waller
WWE.com

The NXT Championship cage match could have gone with a lot of gaga – plunder, other dramatic interventions – but it was a surprisingly simple power battle between Bron Breakker and Grayson Waller.

Waller was never going to be able to match power with Breakker, but he was cagey (pun intended) in picking his spots and using the cage – and the no-DQ stipulation – to his advantage to make the match more competitive. Because the match only could be won via pinfall or submission, it eliminated the trope of slow climbs out or going for the door.

Instead, both men threw each other into the cage walls liberally. Bron overcame a couple last-ditch efforts by Grayson, brought him back into the cage with a superplex, and then delivered two spears (with some unfortunate Shawn Michaels-inspired dramatic dialogue interjected) to retain his title.

It wasn’t a classic, but it was a good, solid match that didn’t overstay its welcome. Waller didn’t look any more overmatched than he might have on paper, and he actually hung with Breakker pretty decently.

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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.