5 Ups And 4 Downs From Last Night’s WWE NXT (April 22)

1. There's A Rift In NXT

It becomes more apparent with each passing week that there are two levels to NXT. There's the top tier, where Balor, Itami, Owens and Zayn live, and then there's everybody else. Little else seems to matter right now other than building the top stars, in evidence by four out of tonight's five matches being high end stars vs lesser talent, and in so being became deeply predictable. The opening bout between Finn Balor and Tye Dillinger made this point abundantly clear. Throughout the matches opening moments, the fans painted Dillinger with chants like "Balor's Gonna Kill You", "Kill The Jobber" and, even after Dillinger had managed to get some chops in, "Still A Jobber." The problem with having a few huge international names on your books, means that next to them, everyone comes off as a jobber, even a high mid carder like Tyler Breeze. One could argue that, as a developmental territory, designed to foster new talent, the playing field should be more open. This means that NXT have to become smarter in their booking, coming up with unique combinations, and few more upset victories (harder to pull off if the majority of the international talent are faces) to prevent shows like this becoming bogged down with a surplus of predictable bouts. If the ending of the match is never in doubt, what is there besides star-gazing to keep fans interested in Itami vs Parker?