7 Ups And 3 Downs For Last Night's NXT (May 6)

1. A Midsummer Night's Cole

A feud that started with Velveteen Dream returning to NXT with Marina Schafir's face printed all over his !*$% now finally gets its payoff with the NXT Championship match he was apparently always after from the start. You sat through the Roderick Strong stuff, you sat through a month of promos being literally phoned-in from poolside, and now here's your reward. All 7 minutes of it.

Not unlike Shirai vs Charlotte, it would be very easy to be down on this match for not delivering what you'd expect from a title match but, also not unlike Shirai vs Charlotte, it probably makes the most amount of sense for all involved. There was nothing in this Cole vs Dream feud, and having Lumis inadvertently responsible for him losing sets up a far more compelling rivalry between the former tag-team partners.

That match itself though, despite its short runtime, was actually pretty exciting. Both men kept the energy up and worked to a blistering pace knowing they wouldn't have to stretch it out, and the finish was simply every single UE TakeOver title match abridged. Interference - face fends them off - visual pinfall - Cole takes advantage.

I'm so, so, so tired of saying "under the circumstances" but, under the circumstances, this was a brief but enjoyable TV title defence.