7 Ups And 3 Downs From NXT Stand And Deliver 2023

UPS…

7. Brooks Jensen Makes His Choice

As a match, the NXT Women’s Tag Team Championship bout was average at best. As a drama, it was full of C-level acting, but that still doesn’t matter.

The ongoing saga of Brooks Jensen being swayed in the name of finding a woman has been perversely entertaining, with his budding relationship with Kiana James being just interesting enough and having enough twists and turns to keep you hooked.

Saturday, James saved her barely there tag partner Fallon Henley right out of the gate, but ultimately she wanted Brooks to hand her her purse presumably so she could retrieve an object to use. Jensen refused, which led to Kiana falling victim to Alba Fyre & Isla Dawn’s Backstabber/Swanton combo. Brooks tried to make the save, but Josh Briggs stopped him, and the women’s tag titles went from NXT’s odd couple to the spooky duo.

Despite all of this being just pedestrian drek, there’s intrigue in where this goes next week. Does Fallon finally tell Brooks about Sebastian? Does Kiana come clean or tell a story that justifies everything? Will we find out what was in the bag and whether James intended to cheat?

This is an easy “down” for many, but if you’re finding perverse entertainment in it, this was fine.

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Contributor

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.