5 Ups & 1 Down From Last Night's WWE NXT (Feb 21)

3. THE Match

Last night's show was largely built around NXT Champion Andrade 'Cien' Almas and Johnny Gargano's Title Vs. Career match. There's a lot to unpack here, but first, let's consider the bouts merits.

Gargano vs. Almas IV was predictably fantastic. The duo can't help but have world class matches together, and successfully adapted their TakeOver format to Center Stage Theater's more intimate setting, delivering the weekly show's best match of the year so far.

Was it another five-star classic? No, it wasn't, but nobody should've expected that. This weighed in at roughly half the runtime, and without the huge TakeOver stage, it was never going to be on the same level. On its own merits, however, this bout was objectively great, and it's something every WWE fan should seek out.

It featured swathes of call-backs to their previous encounters, and WWE got the inevitable managerial involvement out of the way early on, with Candice LeRae chasing Zelina Vega to the back. This left Almas and Gargano to duke it out. By the end, the near-falls were just as dramatic as Philadelphia's. The finish, too, was perfect, but we'll get to that later...