Posted in: Review, Sports, TV, USA Network, WWE | Tagged: bleeding cool, cable, charlotte flair, finn balor, johnny gargano, NXT, pro wrestling, Review, Rhea Ripley, streaming, television, tommaso ciampa, tv, wrestling, wwe

"WWE NXT" Goes Glorified Clip Show in Low-Key Effort [REVIEW]

WWE NXT – the darling show of the WWE Universe – opened with Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano reflecting on their careers in NXT thus far. They took a deep introspective look into their relationship with each other, both in the ring and out of the ring. This was a good way to start a show that will likely have very little in the way of wrestling, or live promos. This pre-tapped promo was thought out, well done, and would have fit in on any other night of NXT.

With what could be weeks of not having live wrestling events, I can not stress the importance of WWE (and every other wrestling company) still putting out content. My only — very minor complaint — is that there hasn't been much in the way of actual wrestling. On Monday Night RAW this week, viewers got to re-watch the entire men's Royal Rumble match. On tonight's NXT, the Ciampa and Gargano piece took up the first hour of NXT.

While this is a great time to develop characters, we still need to see actual wrestling. By the time the second hour started, hosts Tom Phillips and Triple H recapped the first hour — and we went right back into the Ciampa and Gargano introspects.

Thankfully by an hour 15 into the show, we got into a Finn Balor piece. It should come to know surprise to anyone here that he's still my favorite wrestler. His first NXT run was unreal. It was beautifully poetic and mesmerizing. And now Balor is back in NXT. I felt he was starting to flounder on RAW, but in NXT he positively shines. We get a nice piece of Balor talking about his WWE career, followed up with the NXT women's cham, Rhea Ripley.

Ripley has indeed had a great career in WWE thus far. She's fearless, determined, and primed for the top spot in WWE. With her upcoming match against Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania — a match that will be historic simply for the nature of this years WrestleMania — she has a lot going on.

At the end of tonight's episode I felt mostly frustrated. Sure, we got two hours of solid character development, but at least RAW had one match. While I don't think this will be NXT every week, this week's episode was a little boring. Watch it if you're invested in the above performers, but otherwise you can skip this one.

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