6 Ups And 2 Downs From Last Night's NXT (April 7)

1. One Final Cheat

Well, I was wrong. I tried to stay positive about this, tried to get invested in the story again, tried to see the rays of light in the improving promo work, tried my best to ignore the fact this was a needless rehash of a well-worn story that had absolutely nothing new to add to the narrative. I tried. But I was wrong.

Johnny Gargano and Tomasso Ciampa are two of the best pro-wrestlers in the entire world and, without them, there's no way NXT would have been in a position to command a move to weekly live TV. They've been the promotions two most dependable performers and, if you put together the brand's all-time 10 greatest matches, they'd probably feature in over half of them.

This, however, was one of the worst things they've even been involved in. An overlong (43 minutes for crying out loud) end to an already overlong feud, this was self-indulgent, hollow, and lacking a story, spectacularly failing in all the ways the Firefly Funhouse succeeded.

In that, John Cena cameoed as nWo Hogan in a striking, but never spelled-out metaphor for how he was too afraid to turn heel at a key point in his career. Here, Gargano loudly told the referee "Oh, I know he's got a bad neck!", purely to remind you that Tomasso Ciampa has a bad neck.

This was a letdown of nearly unimaginable proportions, and one you hope doesn't become a watershed moment for either men or the show itself.