4 Ups And 6 Downs From NXT Vengeance Day

UPS…

4. A Major-League Feel

NXT Vengeance Day 2023 Pretty Deadly Chase U
WWE.com

Ever since the pandemic shifted NXT back solely to its smaller arena (first Full Sail, then the Performance Center) for all of its shows, the brand has felt much more minor league than its Raw and SmackDown counterparts. Even the PLEs have felt smaller.

But Saturday’s Vengeance Day brought NXT back out of the Performance Center and into an arena with 5,000-plus screaming fans. It featured a staging somewhat different than what we see on NXT, Raw or SmackDown. And it put forth a lot of solid in-ring action. While there were criticisms of several matches earlier, the overall attempt was good and it was a net positive.

Taken together, this felt like a big win for NXT in terms of getting out of its little, insular shell in the PC and back into the wrestling world. There are definitely some improvements that need to be made to reach the level of a TakeOver, but this was a step up from the PC PLEs and a breezy, fun show to watch overall.

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Contributor

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.