6 Ups & 2 Downs From Last Night's NXT (July 22)

5. Blackheart Defeats Aliyah

Y'know, I still don't for the life of me understand the booking in this Aliyah vs Shotzi Blackheart feud. Shotzi broke Stone's leg, which instead of getting her a match with Aliyah got her one with Indi Hartwell instead. The NXT rookie won thanks to a slice of interference and, in truth, it was difficult to see who that benefitted. It wasn't Shotzi. It wasn't Aliyah. It was barely even Hartwell.

This week though the two finally came to blows and, possibly predictably, Blackheart got a measure of revenge by picking up the win and driving over Robert Stone's other leg. Aliyah though, in all honesty, looked great in this match and it's comfortably the best in-ring showing we've seen from her since the Gods of TV Time decided to bless her so generously this year.

While it's still very randomly put together, the fact we've had a banger of a match now means the logic gaps feel less pertinent. The beauty of the midcard is that you can usually get away with half-arsing your storylines provided the matches deliver and, after what feels like forever since I was able to give Aliyah an Up for something, this absolutely did.