5 Ups & 5 Downs From NXT Vengeance Day 2024

1. Jitters?

Carmelo Hayes Baron Corbin
WWE

Heading into the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic final, it seemed like Trick Melo Gang and the Wolf Dogs were bound to have a red-hot opener that set the tone for the night.

But for whatever reason, the match was plagued with sloppiness and small mistakes – plus a huge one where Bron Breakker nearly decapitated himself like Nathan Frazer did a while back. Fans were hot for Trick Williams and reacted for everything he did – even if half his moves missed by a country mile. He attempted two neckbreakers and lost his opponent on the way down on both.

There were so many miscues that after Carmelo Hayes slightly slipped on a Lionsault attempt, Wade Barrett wondered aloud if these were regulation ring ropes as a way to try to cover for the sloppiness.

Whether it was jitters, or over-enthusiasm, or just an off-night, this was not the kind of showing you’d want on a PLE for a tournament final.

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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.