7 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE NXT: New Year's Evil (Results & Review - 2 Jan)

1. Perez Wrestles Herself

Roxanne Perez Arianna Grace
WWE.com

Woof.

Yes, NXT is technically the developmental brand for WWE. Superstars on that show are presumably learning and plying their trade on live television, so it’s fair to give them a bit of leeway.

But Roxanne Perez might as well have been wrestling a mannequin during New Year’s Evil, rather than Arianna Grace. The match was about as basic as it could get, with Roxy racing about the ring and flying around, bouncing off the ropes, the mat and Grace herself, while Arianna was stiff and almost stationary at times. The match more resembled a professional dancer trying to lead someone in their third lesson through a tango.

Grace hasn’t been at this all that long, and she lost an entire year to injury, so there’s obviously time to make strides. But when you’ve got a TV special and a lot of attention focused on it, maybe throwing this match out there wasn’t the best idea.

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.