5 Ups & 5 Downs From NXT Vengeance Day 2024

4. A Better Effort

Trick Williams Ilja Dragunov
WWE

Despite the questionable quality in the opening contest, Trick Williams recovered nicely in the main event against Ilja Dragunov.

The two had a surprisingly bloody, hard-hitting NXT Championship match, with both men busted open early on and continuously swinging for the fences. Dragunov must have hit a half-dozen H-Bombs, while Williams wore out his boot kicking the champ repeatedly. There wasn’t anything fancy about this, but it was competent, and fans were way into the match and solidly behind Trick, biting for every near-fall.

The finish, even with a referee bump, was still pretty nicely done. Both men went for home runs, and at the end, they just charged at each other like jousting knights, with Dragunov scoring the knockout blow.

If you’re an NXT coach, you’ve got to be happy with Trick’s performance here and hope to see more like this as he continues to develop.

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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.