John Pollock (POST Wrestling): "What more could convince the viewer at home that they're missing out than by utilizing Pat McAfee..."

POST Wrestling · April 5, 2026 · 2h 1m

WWE NXT Stand & Deliver 2026 Review | upNXT

Pat McAfee SmackDown promo

What more could convince the viewer at home that they're missing out than by utilizing Pat McAfee to tell you how much this product sucks at the moment? It was a baffling angle for many reasons.

Telling us the product sucks is never a good look, and I hated it. No, I mean, I think that this goes both ways. I thought it was a really dangerous game to be playing.

WrestleMania ticket sales

They have promised that this is going to be a year that TKO is going to hit another set of record profits and WrestleMania is going to be a generator toward that goal. You can see the desperate tactics that they are taking to up this number that has basically stalled at 40,000 tickets each night.

Cody Rhodes/WWE creative direction

I think the bigger question is, is this something that's going to be ultimately blow up in Cody's face that he is going to be sort of this avatar for everything this audience is pushing back towards? It was an awful angle and it's been pretty universally panned.

NXT roster depth

I think that there is a lot of hours obviously that we talk about all of the time. And with NXT, it has just gotten plucked... you take out a lot of these familiar acts and I don't know if NXT necessarily has that must-see act at the moment.

NXT Stand & Deliver viewership

45 minutes into the show they had 117,000 viewers in the U.S. and by the middle of the main event it skyrocketed to 145,000 viewers. I would look at those as fairly disappointing numbers when it's YouTube.

NXT distribution strategy

I think they believe there's a value for these NXT PLEs and they're just going to run these on YouTube until a deal of that value comes their way.

NXT Stand & Deliver 2026 event atmosphere

I felt like this past Tuesday show felt like the big show this week, like going there next to Madison Square Garden. It was a hotter crowd overall.

WWE developmental philosophy

Since the 2.0 paint splatter era, they definitely seem they cut and move a bit more precise. Like they definitely go, 'Okay, this isn't going to work,' we're going to move away, release someone or contract ending or something.

J.C. Jane main roster call-up

I think Tuesday will be her [J.C. Jane] NXT swan song. I think that will be the final bow in the performance center because I feel like a call up is definitely in her future.

NXT rebuilding phase

I feel like this phase two of the rebuilding of NXT, and whenever we lose people to the main roster, it's always in that way. So, yeah, you notice the smaller venues and things like that.