NXT Stand and Deliver

Overall Rating: ★★★●★☆☆

As usual, my preferences do not align with the people making the show and the main event disappointed me while some of the earlier matches were very entertaining. Overall, the show was better than I expected but not as good as I'd hoped

1. North American Championship Ladder Match (Cameron Grimes vs. Carmelo Hayes vs. Santos Escobar vs. Solo Sikoa vs. Grayson Waller)
   ★★★●★★☆
   Started weirdly, because only Grimes and Hayes got entrances; the rest were already waiting in the ring. Took a while to get going, but once it did it was good. Although Grimes hasn't really being doing anything for me lately, and Waller is, I guess, doing his job well because I'm supposed to dislike him and I do. Unfortunately it's in a way where I don't want to see him, even to see him lose. But there were some cool moments early on and the second half was really good.
2. Singles (Tony D'Angelo vs. Tommaso Ciampa)
   ★★★●☆☆☆
   D'Angelo's mafia gimmick is super lame and not helped at all by the bizarre decision to have him accompanied to the ring by the son of an actual convicted gangster. And didn't we already have a big send-off match for Tommaso Ciampa? Keeping him around after WarGames was a mistake. He should have stayed off TV for a while then showed up as a surprise at WrestleMania. Imagine Cody Rhodes shows up, all brash and arrogant, demanding a challenge, and who should appear to face him but Tommaso Ciampa, last seen in defeat at WarGames? Could have been amazing.
3. NXT Tag Championship Triple Threat (Creed Brothers vs. MSK vs. Imperium)
   ★★★●★★☆
   These teams all have great potential, although the Creeds have further to go than the others. Marcel Barthel is really good, and MSK are great together. A straight tag match between MSK and Imperium would probably have been better, but this match was good.
4. Women's Championship Fatal Four-Way (Mandy Rose vs. Cora Jade vs. Kay Lee Ray vs. Shirai Io)
   ★★★●★★☆
   Ray and Shirari are both fantastic, and Rose isn't bad either. Cora Jade's the weak link, but she comes across as a likeable underdog which makes up for a lot. Great match, and I'd love to see Ray vs. Shirai one-on-one.
5. Singles (LA Knight vs. Gunther)
   ★★★●☆☆☆
   Gunther's new look and new name combine to make him much less than he was as Walter. He lacks the sheer presence he had, and it doesn't help at all that the commentators are consistently inconsistent (and never correct) about how they pronounce his name. LA Knight is great, but I don't think he really had anything to sink his teeth into here. I don't really know why these two were fighting and I'm not sure they did either.
6. Men's Championship (Bron Breakker vs. Dolph Ziggler)
   ★★★○☆☆☆
   I realised, while watching this, that Dolph Ziggler is the wrong person for this storyline. It would have worked much, much better if it had been Tyler Breeze, come back to this new NXT as a heel. The old NXT guy from before any of the ones who are still hanging around, showing up the new kids. It could have been great. But of course they fired Breeze so we got basically that concept but with Ziggler instead, who has no connection to NXT, so he's just some outsider. It's fine, but it could have been great.
   But then the match itself was kind of slow and boring and I don't understand the ending. I thought I knew how this story was going, but apparently I was wrong and what I thought was the end actually wasn't. I don't know where it goes from here, but I guess more of the same? I don't care.