So About NXT - COMICSXF

Charlie: You know, we took off last week because near the end of the week things got a little depressing in the world of wrestling. Wrestling news has been a whirlwind of speculation and a little bit of sadness for a while now and I thought we might want to touch on that a little. So…let’s dedicate this Week in Wrestling to NXT

Vishal: Looks with his special eyes My brand!

This Week in NXT

Charlie: Admittedly, it was kind of hard to watch NXT this week after the release of 12 NXT wrestlers and news if an edict that’s come down to turn the brand back into developmental instead of staying the course as the super indie the show has become. I think it’s way too early to know if that particular way of thinking is going to come to pass, but there were absolutely cracks in this week’s episode.

Vishal: NXT, uh, had to deal with a LOT of cuts right before this show – it’s deflated what was an already slowly petering out brand. And I hate to say this, considering NXT’s generally my favorite show every week, but this feels irrecoverable.

Charlie: I was really, really hoping that when NXT moved to Tuesday’s that the show, despite being two hours now, would find its way back to what it had been previously, no longer concerned with what other companies were doing outside of its own bubble. That sadly hasn’t been the case and outside of a few segments specifically this week, I really struggled this week.

Vishal: I don’t want to say it’s all bad! NXT has always been good at throwing good matches together and just letting folks wrestle, and that’s the case here – Dakota Kai and Sarray had a surprise banger (even if Sarray’s never able to get the opponent she actually wants), Gigi Dolin had a good showing against a jobber, Odyssey Jones still looks huge, and Pete Dunne and Ilja Dragunov had most of a good match. But unfortunately, good matches aren’t enough to stand out against “the competition” anymore. WWE barely has them, and AEW’s putting out about as much as NXT.

Charlie: You’re right, Vishal. And while good wrestling has always been something that NXT has had, even at its weakest points, that’s absolutely not enough to pull me in week after week. I don’t know who would continue to come back only on the promise of good wrestling matches devoid of long term storytelling.

Whether or not some of the more startling changes that have been floated actually happen to NXT, something is gonna change, especially in the main event scene, but Vishal knows better than me.

Vishal: NXT is really struggling in their main event scene. The most compelling of the “triple header” matches for Takeover 36 is WALTER vs Ilja Dragunov, a feud that first appeared on NXT this week. Kross vs Joe has been a majority poorly done feud, with more of the feud focusing on Regal feeling sad that everyone’s hurting each other than Joe and Kross. Which makes the extended video package we just saw for the match this week bizarre, because it suddenly turned this into an old guard vs new guard situation? The video package was fantastic, but it was also just not the feud we’d seen up to that point.

Charlie: What I’m not sure about, is why we couldn’t have had this the whole time? Why Kross couldn’t have brought this promo energy out through this whole entire feud. Even if we put aside what’s happened on the main roster and I mean, you kind of have to, the feud was lackluster to begin with. I love having Joe back, but I was much more interested in him as an enforcer for Regal. That being said…

That’s not the only issue with the main event scene.

Vishal: Yeah the real problem I’m having with NXT is the Adam Cole vs Kyle O’Reilly feud. And I know this isn’t on the performers, because they’ve shown that they’re very capable of having that feud in Ring of Honor – they even got to have a match at Wrestle Kingdom! But this feud just feels lifeless. Their first, unsanctioned, match was mediocre because there wasn’t any real unifying element to the whole affair. Their second match was good, but was on TV and had ad breaks. This third match, though, really pisses me off.

First off, we have the title: “Adam Cole vs. Kyle O’Reilly III: The Undisputed Finale”. Right away, this feels corporatized. Designed to sell merchandise rather than sell that this is a genuine feud between them. But what’s even worse is the actual match stipulation – or should I say, stipulations. Much like the final Gargano vs Cole match, both competitors got to pick their own stipulation for a Three Stages of Hell match. And just like Gargano and Cole, the stipulation is “Regular wrestling match” and “Street fight”. At least during Gargano and Cole, the choices felt fitting – the story was about how Gargano was finding more enjoyment in violence rather than true wrestling. But here, it just feels stale – we’re just doing the thing we did 2 years ago!

Charlie: Ugh. I just. I really hate this and I’ve been trying to examine why these two can’t seem to have a proper, exciting feud with good matches inside of the confines of NXT. When we were still mulling over the unsanctioned match, I thought it was really the lack of ability to weave the past into the story. WWE is a closed off ecosystem and it’s unwillingness to let the competitors past in other promotions actually into the story has only ever been a hindrance. Kyle and Adam are a very clear example of this. It pissed me off we never heard about Wrestle Kingdom or that time Kyle nearly ripped a hole in Adam’s face in ROH, but I let it slide. This last part of the feud is just so rehashed from other NXT feuds including ones that Adam’s already been in that it would be really hard for me to say that I’m looking forward to it or that I’m not just ready for Adam to be done with NXT and frankly WWE. He’s outgrown this pond.

I really don’t know why we’re doing this, but I do hope that Adam is able to find greener pastures after Takeover is done with.

Vishal: I love NXT, I really do. But between the cuts (that reportedly HHH and Shawn Michaels didn’t even know about ahead of time) and this piss-poor booking of the main event scene, I’m very worried that it won’t last much longer. At least, not in the way I’ve enjoyed it.

Charlie. I heard a rather haunting premonition even before all of this NXT news had come to light which was that next year, someone predicted that NXT would look more like WWE/ECW in 2007 than the NXT of 2018. Which…woof.