6 Ups And 3 Downs From Last Night's NXT (June 3)

3. Aliyah, You Gotta Beat Her

It's my fault for praising it.

One week after it finally felt like the Robert Stone Brand gimmick made a lick of sense, it's flung headfirst into WWE's Let's See How Little Sense This Can Make Machine. Chelsea Green, finally reaping the benefits of a manager, promptly bins him off, before said manager begins starting to manage the woman who's inquiries he very recently rejected.

Coincidentally, she just so happens to lose that match.

That in itself is a problem though because after being a total non-entity on the show for months, Aliyah was finally finding her feet in NXT. We'd begun to understand who she was, she'd made a few big improvements in her matches, she seemed to necessitate the TV time she's been getting. She hasn't had a win on TV in over a year, (March 2019, in case you're wondering) which is fine if you don't have a sense of character but, now that she does, it risks being defined by this losing streak.

Throwing a desperate Robert Stone into her corner is absolutely baffling. Unless she's now going to go on an improbable winning streak, leading to the triumphant blow-off match where he defeats Chelsea Green, what possible angle is there here beyond... these two people are losers and now they're losers together.

Also, in other news Santana Garrett is great.