6 Ups And 2 Downs From WWE NXT (Jun 18)

2. No Dain, And Also No Gain

Last week it felt like a slow-burn Damian Priest face-turn might be a pretty interesting development for NXT, but any hopes of that sort of subtly went out of the window within 3 minutes here. One of WWE's biggest problems in recent times is this relentless commitment to making faces sell, and sell, and sell, and sell, and sell, and then finally come back and win.

This is the only way they can think to engender sympathy in a performer, and it's so formulaic it kills pretty much all suspense in a match. Priest's injured back, relentlessly worked over by Killian Dain, was not the building blocks for an exciting pro-wrestling match. A TakeOver payoff after weeks of character development? Maybe. But not 8 minutes of meaningless TV.

Even away from this, the match itself left a lot to be desired. Either as a result of selling the back or not gelling with his opponent, Priest looked oddly sluggish here, and Dain's well-honed style isn't the sort that's going to inject a match with much urgency. A bad day at the office for both men, this, but arguably worth it for him decking Robert Stone through the plexiglass.