By Colin McGuire, ProWrestling.net Staffer
Everything old is new again. And … good again?
It’s been a long time since anyone could call me a regular NXT viewer. That doesn’t mean I don’t check in, and it also doesn’t mean that I don’t catch entire episodes every now and then. Just last week, I stepped in to live-review the episode on F4WOnline.com. I’m not oblivious to NXT; I’m just not a devotee of the brand by any stretch of any imagination. Still, when a plan arose to perhaps check out Saturday night’s Vengeance Day PLE live and in person, I thought, why not?
And so it went. On an icy, rainy, dreary night, I made the trek to Washington, D.C., to check out what ostensibly could be seen as a throwaway PLE for the brand, only to find that people really … well … actually … um … like NXT?
Since the days of the brand being the Ultimate Super Indie, with talent like Kevin Steen and Adam Cole and Tyler Black and so many others finding their way to WWE’s developmental system, NXT has been nothing short of a curious case. It was The Coolest Thing in Wrestling for a little while until AEW came around to take that title (and, eventually, some of the talent). After AEW consistently began beating NXT in the ballyhooed ratings war, the show had an identity crisis, complete with a sweeping hard reset, the inclusion of bright colors, and the always-encouraging “2.0” postscript.
It was at that point when it would have been easy to walk away from NXT forever, and for a little bit, a lot of people did. What was once so cool and must-see now became the butt of every dismissively mean meme on pro wrestling social media. From there, though, NXT did the one thing I believe in most when it comes to these situations: It didn’t stop. It just kept going. The shows were bad. The shows gradually started getting better. There wasn’t a lot of talent to instantly fall in love with, but before long, that changed, too – albeit slowly but surely. AEW still dominated mid-week wrestling headlines, but NXT quietly began turning things around without much fanfare.
The most fun aspect of that evolution is the reality that it’s really still kind of/sort of quietly turning things around without much fanfare. I’m not sure that there has been a definitive moment in the most recent iteration of NXT to which most of us can point and say, “This was unquestionably where things turned around!” It just … keeps going. In the meantime, the brand has assembled what might be the best women’s division in American pro wrestling, launched people like Carmelo Hayes and Bron Breakker to the next level, and slowly earned back the trust of the average pro wrestling fan.
It’s that last part that I saw on full display Saturday night. I don’t know why – because I don’t really even know what exactly I was expecting – but I walked away from the event surprised at how passionate, honest, and truly Into It NXT fans are these days. It wasn’t quite the fervor of the Black and Gold era, but it certainly wasn’t a couple hundred people in the Performance Center confused as to why they’re watching a “poker showdown” between Cameron Grimes and Duke Hudson. The audience was engaged. The talent delivered. It added up to a very good live pro wrestling experience.
And that included, as much as it pains me to admit it, the way the venue was set up. This was the same place that hosted multiple New Japan events I attended as well as a bunch of AEW shows, including the famous episode of Dynamite where Jon Moxley returned to cut an emotional comeback promo, a night for which I was also in the building. In the past, NJPW and AEW set that building up to maximize its space. The result, I always felt, was a little lacking – especially during New Japan shows because any arena can look empty with the dubious combination of medium attendance and sparse production value. NXT smartly cut the building by something like a third and that gave the entire experience an energy that only improved the quality of the evening.
Oh. And the fact that this was a crisp, early 6 p.m. bell time didn’t hurt, either.
It’s all to say that sometimes stepping out to see these shows live can really surprise you in the best of ways. I’ve been to my share of disappointing pro wrestling shows; this was not one of them. Instead, Vengeance Day 2025 turned out to be affirmation that NXT isn’t just back in the mix when it comes to whatever perceived ratings war it might be in with AEW (even if the shows don’t run on the same nights anymore), but it’s also back in the mix when it comes to being considered alongside solid, occasionally very good pro wrestling programming that fans can trust won’t let them down. Crowds aren’t losing their minds for Ricochet moonsaulting into a super-kick from Adam Cole anymore, but they are back to passionately chanting those three letters that once felt like they represented the basement of mainstream pro wrestling.
“NXT! NXT! NXT!”
And while there still might be a ways to go if it ever wants to get back to challenging Raw or Smackdown as the best brand WWE has to offer, this weekend proved to at least one person that Shawn Michaels’s Little Engine That Can is heading in the right direction. So, everything old is new again? Sure. But everything old being good again is an achievement of which those women and men in the NXT locker room ought to be proud.
There’s a lot of talent that was left off the show, like Tony D’Angelo – and that’s a good thing, too. The matches had storylines heading into the PLE.
Tony D and company had a storyline begin on the NXT go home show. No doubt that will grow to a PLE encounter down the road.
A lot of talent, and I’m glad there is concern about showcasing them in moments so the audience invests in them, insyead of just stacking a card and throwing people out there.