5 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE NXT: Roadblock (Results & Review - 5 Mar)

3. Bad Line Reading

Tatum Paxley
WWE

Some failed TV writer clearly thinks they’ve struck gold with Tatum Paxley’s obsessed, ranting single white female persona, force-feeding bad dialogue into her and having her spew it out at maximum speed.

While prepping for their tag title match later in the night, Lyra Valkyria and Paxley were chatting about their chances when Tatum maniacally declared that they had to win, that she’d do anything to win, and when she was champion, she would “journey into the farthest darkness,” conjure some evil, torture opponents and “take out their souls until they’re crying in complete agony.”

Terrifying stuff. No, really. It’s actually scary that this made television, that no one heard it during rehearsals and killed the segment for being insanely bad and laughable. Worse, it just makes your NXT Women’s Champion look silly by association as she tries to keep a (worried) straight face reacting to this screed as if Tatum shouldn’t be wearing Joe Gacy’s straight jacket.

There’s over-the-top obsessive behavior, and then there’s “kicked out of the William Shatner Drama School for overacting.”

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Contributor
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.