5 Ups And 3 Downs From Last Night's WWE NXT (May 4)

3. Greater Than 10

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NXT

The first competitive match of the NXT broadcast featured "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived" Austin Aries versus "The Perfect 10" Tye Dillinger. Aries is a world-class talent, but Dillinger is also pretty great, so the result was a fun match.

Dillinger was competitive, using a backbreaker to get an advantage and then nearly scoring the win off an ushikoroshi (death valley driver into an over-the-knee neckbreaker). Aries fought back, hitting a spinning forearm to knock Dillinger down, then a 450 Splash to put him away for three.

The match was good, but it was unfortunately tainted by the fan reaction. Fans cheered for both men wildly, which kind of undermined Aries as the face (the last time he was on, facing Shinsuke Nakamura, fans dug his shtick but were firmly behind "The King of Strong Style"). There were also fans audibly shouting insults at "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived."

Maybe Aries is turning heel soon, which might be for the best if this reaction continues. Either way, though, he'll be having amazing matches for the brand for a while to come.

Contributor
Contributor

Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried. *Best Crowd of the Year, 2013