With the initial show ripped away with just weeks to go, NXT elected to proceed with virtually all of the card as it had already been booked. Excluding the main event (more on that later), this was fairly unnecessary.
Split across television specials in a (failed) effort to at least with a couple of viewership battles out of the administrative disaster, the Women's Number One Contender Ladder Match was the predictable high amidst a slew of grim lows. With the tragic logo in the background as an echo of what might have been, Adam Cole and Velveteen Dream had a lousy NXT Championship match while Damian Priest, Keith Lee and Dominik Dijakovic had an absurdly stupid Triple Threat that repeatedly played to a crowd that weren't f*cking there.
The whole world was sad, and rather than providing a supposed distraction, NXT succumbed to the malaise. And all, seemingly, because it was thought that the big matches could pop a couple of numbers.
Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation for nearly 10 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years.
As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 65,000,000 total downloads. Within the podcasting space, he also co-hosts Benno & Hamflett, In Your House! and Podcast Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Podcast.
He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, Fightful, POST Wrestling, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has provided in-person coverage of some of the biggest pay-per-views and Premium Live Events in wrestling history, including WrestleMania, Survivor Series, All In & Double Or Nothing in destinations such as New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live.
