7 Ups And 2 Downs From Last Night’s WWE NXT (Mar 30)

2. Say What You Mean

There was one more pre-taped promo on NXT, a sitdown speech from Sami Zayn talking about his upcoming match with Shinsuke Nakamura. While Balor's promo earlier in the show felt like it was written by a recent graduate of a WWE Scriptwriting 101 class, this one felt completely natural. Zayn started off by talking about how even though he's been busy with Kevin Owens on Raw, he still knows he has a match with Nakamura coming up and he can focus on both things at once. He said that the TakeOver match is a huge opportunity, but it's more important for Nakamura, who only gets one chance to make a first impression. Zayn recalled his own NXT debut, mentioning that he managed to prove himself against Cesaro and that made quite a bit of difference to his career. Even though the promo was ostensibly scripted (they all are, as far as I know), it felt like Zayn was just speaking off the cuff and giving his honest, albeit in-character, reaction to the situation in which he found himself. It was a breath of fresh air, as far as WWE promos go.