5 Ups And 3 Downs From WWE NXT New Year's Evil (Jan 4)

1. Chase's Teachable Moment Gets Wagnered

Not for the last time this year (hopefully!), your writer would like to take a moment to celebrate the outstanding work of one Andre Chase. Once again, New Year's Evil saw the now apparent babyface take to the ring and play the crowd like a fiddle as he elicited chants of "You Deserve It!" to one of his Chase-U students on the back of offering him the first-ever full scholarship to his school. That's the reward for saving the life of a tutor... and not getting killed by Harland yourself, as it goes.

This is the same dude who was exploding at his pupils for calling out his calamitous errors a mere few months ago, less we forget. Quite the turnaround.

But one star who hasn't experienced that same sort of momentum gathering is Von Wagner. Unleashed onto an unsuspecting CWC last night, Vonny chose to take this teachable moment to reveal that he's well aware of the negativity sent his way but also knows he's your favourite wrestler, like the giant ball of contradiction we know him to be.

Instead of coming across like a compelling "worked shoot", Wagner yet again felt completely out of his depth on the mic as he marauded around like a fed up grizzly bear. Trying to dial up this "blurring of the lines" Wagner would take his anger out on some apparent members of the audience in the wake of going after the hero we all deserve in that aforementioned scholarship legend.

None of this clicked from the second Wags spoiled the party, with go-home heat and audible groans hammering home the fact this developmental presentation of a doofus is going nowhere anytime soon... oh, and leave Roddy alone.