6 Ups And 2 Downs From Last Night's WWE NXT (Feb 3rd)

1. Apollo Looks Great In Defeat

Sometimes when a competitor loses to a champion, they walk out of it looking weaker as a character, but Apollo Crews walked out of his loss with Finn Balor looking like a star. In his best WWE match to date, Crews had a sense of urgency that we haven't seen from him before. He was doing everything he could to try and beat Balor. Corey Graves was superb on commentary, speculating that if Crews doesn't beat Balor that he's not sure where that leaves him, while Balor was pulling out all the stops to try and beat the young up-and-comer. In the final sequence, Crews got a great near fall before The Balor Club leader hit the Coup de Grâce on Apollo but he recoginzed that the move might not be enough so he picked Crews back up and delivered a rarely-seen Bloody Sunday to pin the former Uhaa Nation and walk away with a victory. The key here is that Balor knew he couldn't defeat Crews with his regular finisher and had to pull out the rare lifting underhook DDT, which puts over Crews as a huge threat and says that it takes a hell of a lot to beat in the ring, and you'll need more than just your standard finisher. This match was great and it's clear that Apollo Crews is gonna be one to watch in NXT in 2016.