6 Ups & 3 Downs From NXT Great American Bash 2023

Downs…

3. Mafia Motions

Tony D'Angelo
WWE

There was reason to celebrate Tony D’Angelo and Stacks taking the NXT Tag Team Championship from Gallus after six months on top, but the match itself was nothing to write home about.

Oh sure, they executed their spots well, but it didn’t feel like the conclusion to a blood feud where the heels sent one of the challengers to prison for a month. The story was there, but the soul was missing from the match itself.

A well-executed match is definitely something fans should be expecting on an NXT PLE at this point, but when you don’t feel anything – not for the moves themselves nor the wrestlers performing them – that’s not great. Maybe that’s an unfair criticism, but a title change in a PLE-opening match should trigger emotion during the match, not just after the 3 count.

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Contributor
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.