Every Major Weekly Wrestling Show Ranked From Worst To Best
3. NXT
NXT is an excellent weekly wrestling product, but one still hamstrung, subjectively, by flawed storytelling mechanisms.
That they generate such building-shaking reactions every single time grants a degree of leeway, as predictable as NXT's patterns have become. Feuds and matches are typically established by a wrestler's music hitting while another stands in the ring, the crowd-popping arrival staring the other down, and Mauro Ranallo spitting a corny pop culture reference to sell it. That this generates excitement is undeniable, but there's nothing under the hood, and the show's over-reliance on contrived main roster f*ck finishes is such a bore.
Nonetheless, NXT's positives greatly outweigh those negatives. The in-ring product is a straight-up sugar rush that deserves its reputation as one of the world's most cutting edge. Bouts as kinetic as Adam Cole vs. Matt Riddle rarely go down on other weeklies and the roster is ridiculously stacked, giving Triple H an almost endless list of combinations to play with. This is a big-budget version of Pro Wrestling Guerrilla with stories, basically. It is exactly what its core audience wants and the added appeal of main roster stars like Bayley and Finn Balor showing up gives it a fresh anything-can-happen vibe.
It's a great show, just not the greatest.