8 Ups And 3 Downs From Last Night's NXT (5 Feb)

1. Oh Good, A Brawl!

Minor minor minor minor gripe this, but after how good the opening segment of the show was (more on that later) giving us the 8,000th feud-furthering mass scrap since NXT arrived on the USA Network elicited a bit of an eye-roll when it's supposed to raise your heart rate. After a strong promo and some fun backstage stuff, it all just broke out into a fight between Ciampa and UE again.

The weird thing is that, for once, this one was actually quite good. It spilled into the ring, got joined by Dunne and Riddle, and after a few cool spots William Regal arrived to cut his usual masterclass on less-is-more GMing. He was sick of this ruining his show, so the 7 men would settle it in the main event instead. This is pretty much how you book these things.

But the sad thing is that the goodwill towards these segments has just worn too thin. This one carried virtually no impact because we see them every single week now. NXT needs to save them for times like this when they matter, not overuse them to the point of parody.