Lola Vice secures the spot nobody else wanted
The July 14 episode of NXT delivered exactly what the brand needs: a main event that actually matters. Lola Vice punched her ticket to title contention, walking away as the clear number one contender for the women’s gold. After grinding through the mid-card, she finally looks like a predator sitting at the apex of the division.
The booked finish was far from clean, which is usually where NXT drops the ball. We saw interference, a ref bump that lasted long enough for a bathroom break, and the kind of chaotic finish that makes purists grab the antacids. But for once, the messiness served a purpose. Vice didn't just stumble into a win; she effectively weaponized the brand's lack of order.
If you watched the NXT review for this week, you know the main event is currently the talk of the town for all the wrong reasons. The booking felt like a frantic scramble to keep the title picture relevant. My gripe? The reliance on outside chaos when Vice is clearly good enough to carry the segment with her feet alone.
The wrestling vs. theater debate
There is a glaring issue with the current NXT creative direction that even the most loyal fan needs to acknowledge. We are seeing a reliance on cinematic interjections instead of straight, technical wrestling. When you have talent as crisp as Vice, turning a singles match into a three-ring circus feels like a slap in the face to the participants.
The sequence leading to the finish involved a series of blown spots that looked like they were choreographed by a committee of people who haven't stepped in a ring since the nineties. It’s frustrating. You have these stars putting in the work, taking stiff bumps, and executing high-level transitions, only for the lights to flicker or someone to sprint down the aisle with a steel chair.
We are watching athletes with genuine credentials get buried under cartoonish booking. The reality is that the division is talented, but the creative team seems terrified of letting a match just be a match. It undermines the authority of the winner when they can’t close the deal on their own.
Lola Vice is the only lifeboat on this ship
Despite the questionable booking decisions, Vice herself is the breakout star of the summer. She possesses an intensity that renders half the roster obsolete by comparison. She doesn't need a script written in crayon to get her point across; she just needs thirty seconds of camera time to glare at the lens. That is star power.
Her trajectory is hitting the 90% grade mark for successful character development right now. She’s moved from the mid-card churn into a legit threat. If NXT keeps putting her in these nonsensical multi-person interference spots, they risk cooling her off before the title match even begins. That would be a catastrophic waste of the most interesting character they have.
I want to see the version of Vice that dominates in the ring without the smoke and mirrors. Give her a fifteen-minute showcase against someone who can actually keep pace, let them trade strikes, and pull the plug on the interference for a month. If the management listens, we might actually be looking at the next face of the women's division. If they don't, we're just waiting for the next gimmick to stall her momentum.
This isn't about blaming the talent. The talent is keeping the lights on. It’s about the creative team realizing that the audience isn't as dumb as they seem to think. We can tell the difference between a high-stakes title pursuit and a scripted soap opera segment designed to pad the runtime.
Let the women wrestle. Given the chance, Vice won't just steal the show; she’ll make sure nobody else wants to go on after her. That’s how you build a brand, not by creating a highlight reel of distractions.