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

1. Bland Supremacy

The Robert Stone Brand has, by whatever metric you care to measure it, not worked at all thus far. It debuted to virtually no fanfare and began its run with a loss to Kayden Carter, the very woman whose entire job on this show is to make you look good while she loses. She did manage to get into the women's ladder match but contributed very little of note, and now she's got a dusty win over Xia Li.

Since this started the end of January, that's everything that's happened.

It's a shame because the idea of a brand representative gimmick, all managed by some preening Web 2.0 type with moccasins-and-no-socks is a great idea. It should be used to get otherwise hopeless heels opportunities well above what they actually deserve and, while we're seeing the first signs of that in the last few weeks, there's so much ground to try and make up that a 90-second squash against Xia Li might as well not have happened at all.

Still though, I am grateful to NXT for allowing me to compile two downs into one here, as the only positive to take from Li's last match against Aliyah was that this bizarre, long-running feud now finally be allowed to quietly die. Apparently not though! Aliyah came down to distract her nemesis in this match, ensuring we'll get at least one more chapter in that particular story. Unless they've got something spectacular planned, nobody wants to see that.