6 Ups And 3 Downs From Last Night's WWE NXT (Mar 16th)

Ups - 6. Wrestling Matters

As mentioned, last week's NXT program only presented one match, but it was a classic. Samoa Joe beat Sami Zayn in a two out of three falls match to earn another shot at Finn Balor's NXT Championship. WWE's producers never met a clip package they didn't like, so of course, this show started out with a great video of the Joe-Zayn match. Unlike Raw, which usually opens with grainy-looking footage of one of the McMahons talking ad nauseam or Triple H exerting authority over an up-and-coming star, this time, an actual wrestling match was the focus of the video. It was refreshing. There was obviously a lot that the short clip package couldn't capture, but they sure managed to make the bout look like a classic. Joe scored the first fall after a Muscle Buster, but Zayn managed to even the score by forcing Joe to tap to a Koji Clutch. Zayn tried to win off the Helluva Kick, but Joe dodged it and locked in the Coquina Clutch, choking Zayn out.