6 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (Results & Review - 9 Oct)

2. An Underwhelming Coming-Out Party

The weeks of hype and anticipation building for Tegan Nox’s big title match should have increased enthusiasm for the superstar’s potential breakout moment, but it instead might have built expectations up too much.

Nox was set to challenge Becky Lynch for the NXT Women’s Championship on Raw several weeks back, but that was scrubbed at the last minute, That was folded into a storyline, with Tegan getting the next shot after Becky defended against Tiffany Stratton – but then that match got delayed a week, building it up another week.

Fans finally got the Nox/Lynch match Monday night, and while it was certainly fine, it was nowhere near the kind of breakout performance that it could have been. Tegan held her own and there were a few nice moments, but the match suffered from an unconscious buildup it couldn’t meet. Nox still looked a bit timid out there at a couple of moments, and crowd reaction wasn’t there the entire way, which also dragged this down.

It's hard to call this a noble failure – giving Tegan the platform to earn a spot was smart, and she certainly deserves a more consistent push, which in turn would likely address the few shortcomings. But on the night, this didn’t feel like a big title match, just a random challenger-of-the-week affair.