5 Ups And 2 Downs From Last Night's WWE Mae Young Classic (Sept 20)

Solid wrestling and the return of Kaitlyn to WWE ring.

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Now that is more like it.

The first round of the Mae Young Classic is definitely toned-down from where the women could be in terms of in-ring ability, but after a disappointing episode last week, the matches assembled Wednesday were all solid for what they were: first-round bouts where wrestlers were seemingly holding back a bit in anticipation of future rounds.

We saw two NXT wrestlers who made their in-ring debuts at last year’s tournament get another crack at the Mae Young Classic, with one of them advancing to the second round. We saw several experienced wrestlers travel to WWE for the tournament, bolstering its standing and improving matches overall.

We saw the return of former Divas Champions Kaitlyn, who left WWE more than four years ago, as she showed that she hadn’t lost a step. We also saw Toni Storm and Mia Yim, two favorites in the whole tournament, put on solid bouts, which boosted their standing while bumping up the match quality.

As typical, a one-hour show can breeze by, and this week was no excuse. It definitely was worth checking out Wednsday night. With that said, let’s find out what made the grade and what got held back.

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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.