Look, we get it. There are a million hours of wrestling content every week and only so many minutes in the day to watch them. Your time is precious! Okay, maybe it’s not, but you still shouldn’t have to waste it by watching crappy television. So hang back, let us do the heavy lifting, and we’ll let you know whether or not this show is worth your time.
WWE NXT
June 20, 2018
This was the first episode of WWE NXT to air on the Network after an incredible NXT Takeover: Chicago special four nights prior. I was actually sitting ringside that night, where they pre-recorded the matches for this very episode. Let’s jump right to the pros and cons…
THE PROSTHE EST OF NXT! Bianca Belair is just all kinds of awesome. She’s been picking up some momentum over the last month with strong performances over no-name opponents, but this was her first real challenge at a relatively established member of the NXT women’s division. Because they set this match up in a backstage promo last week, it was the only part of the show that actually felt compelling.EC3! While he didn’t appear “live” EC3 was featured in a pretty sick promo where he went to WWE HQ to kick in the door of William Regal and demand a higher level of competition, after being left of the NXT Takeover card.THE CONSIT’S PURE FILLER. Nothing of importance or actual consequence happens, and while they talk a lot about what happened at Takeover, we weren’t actually given a single hint at what might be next for any of these superstars.COMMENTARY! I usually like Percy Watson, to a degree, but my lord he was awful on this show. I think it’s because, in order to prevent continuity issues taping NXT TV before the Takeover special, they literally scripted out every word the commentators said. On multiple occasions Percy sounded like he was doing a really bad job of reading off a piece of paper and trying to sound convincing – which, I’m sure is exactly 100% what was happening.THE MIGHTY. Without getting too heavy into the spoilers, I thought The Mighty had a good match with War Raiders, the crowd was super into it, but the end result left one team looking really good, and another team looking really, really bad.WHAT’S NXT? In additioin to not really giving us any information on what to expect going forward, nothing was announced for next week’s show. Seems like a lot of lost momentum so quickly after Takeover.VERDICT: FAST-FORWARD
Normally I like to get really deep into the parts of the show I loved, and pick apart a few things that didn’t work, but that’s not just possible here. Literally half the episode is dedicated to video packages of things we just watched live at Takeover. There are two matches, and both are solid featuring up-and-coming talents, but outside of one pre-recorded promo from EC3 there’s just nothing worth checking out.
Our verdict? Watch the first match, fast-forward to the end and watch the second match, and turn off the show. Tune back in next week after they’ve had their television tapings and can actually get back on track.