Adam Cole's NXT Championship Defences Ranked From Worst To Best

2. Matt Riddle (NXT TV, 2nd October 2019)

Matt Riddle Adam Cole
WWE

Rocket-fuelled for a ratings battle the brand ultimately lost, Adam Cole showed his mettle in a chaotic sprint against Matt Riddle that violently ripped the storytelling shackles from two contemporary all-rounders.

'The Original Bro' looked custom-built for this style of encounter. An exchange engineered to stop people changing channels was so rapid and deadly that even blinking was a risk. The story called for Cole to repeatedly try and fail to put the blockers on Riddle's relentless assaults, with every passing Bro-based move or hold looking to mark the end of a golden prophecy The Undisputed Era had only just fulfilled.

For a show positioned entirely to try and beat the brand new wrestling show on TNT, NXT rather fittingly produced a stick of dynamite. The plan blew up in their faces, but the match brought every bit of the explosiveness, wrecking the curve for the brand's TV quality gauge in the process.

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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 62,000,000 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 covered milestone events in New York, 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. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett