The DarkState fallout and the reality check for NXT
If you listened to the PWTorch Dailycast from May 19, you probably walked away with the same sour taste in your mouth as I did regarding the Saquon Shugars situation. Watching a guy like Shugars get absolutely mauled and shipped out of the DarkState faction isn’t just a booking choice; it’s a death sentence for a mid-card career. I’ve seen this movie before, and it usually ends with the guy released or stuck in catering until his contract expires.
Wells and Lindberg broke it down for nearly an hour, but the core issue is the complete lack of a plan for these guys once they lose their faction footing. You can’t just feed a guy to the wolves and expect him to bounce back with a new gimmick on the fly. It took ten years for some guys to make that transition stick. Shugars is talented, but NXT booking has a habit of burning through potential like a flamethrower in a dry forest.
The weight of the pressure cooker
Then we have the Lizzy Rain scenario. Everyone is talking about her big test against Tatum Paxley, and sure, the match has potential on paper. But let’s keep it real for a second; shoving someone into a featured spot against a veteran like Paxley is a classic sink-or-swim moment that rarely goes well. You’re asking a newer talent to hold up their end of the bargain during high-stakes TV time.
If she fails, she’s buried below the mid-card for months. If she succeeds, she’s still just a body in the division until the next flavor of the month comes along. It feels like the writers are just throwing paint against the wall to see what sticks, rather than building a consistent identity for the women’s roster. I want to see actual character arcs, not just a series of high-profile "auditions" that leave half the talent gasping for relevance.
The technical void in the mid-card
Let’s talk about the ring work because that is where the real frustration lives. Romeo Moreno vs. Tristan Angels is a prime example of the "more is better" school of thought. They pack so many transitions into ten minutes that none of the moves actually have time to breathe or mean anything. It’s like watching a highlight reel on 2x speed where nobody ever sells the impact for more than a heartbeat.
I miss the days when a simple dragon screw actually mattered, or when a superkick was the end of a match instead of a transition. Moreno has the speed, and Angels has the presence, but they are both stuck in a loop of constant motion. It’s exhausting to watch, and quite frankly, it makes it hard to care who wins the three-count at the end of the day. Wrestling is supposed to be a story told in the ring, not a video game glitch.
Missing the point of the weekly grind
There is a real issue with how NXT handles these filler episodes. You have 58 minutes of airtime to fill, but it often feels like 10 minutes of genuine story and 48 minutes of noise. When you have a talent like Paxley, you should be building toward a main event, not just using her as a human measuring stick for whoever is getting a push that week. It’s lazy production, and the fans deserve more than just recycled matchups that lead nowhere significant.
We are only 4 days away from AEW Double or Nothing, and the lack of urgency in some of these NXT stories is bordering on negligent. If the Performance Center wants to remain the gold standard, they need more grit and fewer "big tests" that feel like mid-term exams. I love the sport, and I love seeing new faces, but I’m tired of watching them get chewed up by a system that hasn’t decided what it wants to be yet. Either treat these kids like stars from day one, or stop pretending that a random television match is a coronation.
