NXT HITS & MISSES 6/20: War Machine vs. The Mighty, Velveteen Dream’s cryptic promo, EC3’s new promise, more

This week’s episode was the typical episode that airs after an NXT Takeover which was mainly filled with recaps and interviews by the participants (and maybe one that didn’t), but overall the show was pretty mediocre.  There weren’t any real developments nor advancements of any storylines.  Right now we are in the buildup stage to where we really don’t know what to expect.

Hits: Post Takeover Promos

What really made these promos great was that you really didn’t know what to expect.  From the cryptic Velveteen Dream promo to EC3’s promising to play a big role in the Takeovers to come, now is the time when anything can happen.  Could there be a change in the Dream’s character in the works, will Ricochet reach the levels that he mentioned and which direction will Oney Lorcan and Danny Birch go after their heart aching loss to the Undisputed Era?  Will EC3 deliver on his promise to be a huge piece for Takeovers to come, who knows, but at this point, there is so much to rebuild upon (in a good way) that NXT is set up for more promising times ahead.

Misses:  War Machine vs. The Mighty

This was a HUGE miss.  Yeah, the Mighty got a name change, not to mention the change in attire, but that could not save this match whatsoever.  First of all, there is no way that the Mighty should have been in competition with War Machine and for the amount of time that they were.  I don’t know if it was a time filler for this week’s episode but it was horrible.  After the War Machine has done away with pretty much the top tier of the NXT tag team’s division’s talent, how are they going to struggle with a team that has been out of the scene for so long and when they return, they don’t have any impressive wins?  Also, are the War Machine face?  When they first made their appearance, they beat down both a face and heel team while their next matches were against faces.  So to see them vying for the audience’s admiration is puzzling.  They are supposed to be this dominant force and opposing menaces but they are pandering to the crowd?  Its almost as if they are going into the point of having no true direction.  The Mighty are honestly not that impressive as this new heel turn seems to be a Hail Mary for them to somehow get over.  Either way, this made up for a match that overall was not that bad, but the outliers really catch your attention and make you think otherwise.

NOW CHECK OUT THE PREVIOUS COLUMN: NXT HITS & MISSES 6/6: Ricochet and Velveteen Dream, Ciampa promo, Shayna Baszler promo, TM61 squash, Lacey vs. Kairi