5 Ups & 3 Downs From Last Night's NXT (Aug 5)

2. Rung Out To Dry

This is absolutely nobody's fault, but the North American Championship ladder match is now a complete mess. In the space of a week you've gone from an exciting premise with a clear format, to a baffling compromise that's guaranteed to see Very Recent Losers given a spot in the match at a second opportunity.

Given the time frame NXT weren't left with a lot of options here, but they must have had the remaining 2 triple threat matches planned for the coming weeks. One of those in the bin now, and the other still hasn't even been fully announced. This not only makes the whole thing very confusing, but effectively robs Reed and Lumis of the shine that accompanied their big underdog wins.

It wouldn't have been hard to give us both of those triple threat matches (Grimes, Swerve, Dain, Atlas, Kushida, Mansoor, Thorne!! they weren't exactly short of options), and then announce Lumis was injured and throw together a last-chance battle royale for the 5 men not involved in the respective decisions. That way you stay consistent, make the twist an exciting one, and even your one loser is rehabilitated sufficiently by beating four other men.

As it stands, it's very convoluted at present, and it's robbed this build of a bit of the shine.