Welcome to Wrestling Inc.'s weekly review of "WWE NXT," the show that gave us a new No. 1 contender for the men's North American Championship and a pair of WWE Women's Speed Championship tournament matches! TheWINC staff, as it turns out, has thoughts on all these developments and more, from Zaria's show-opening promo to Jaida Parker vs.Nattie.If you missed the show and need to catch up, you can do that by checking out our "WWE NXT" 6/16/26 results page, which contains everything you need if you like your coverage objective, comprehensive, and live. This column, on the other hand, is the WINC crew's opportunity for subjective opinion, as we turn our gaze on only this week's highest highs and lowest lows as we saw them, anyway. Without further ado, here are three things we hated and three things we loved about the 6/16/26 episode of "WWE NXT!"
Zaria scored a big victory, one of the biggest of her WWE career thus far, last week when she dethroned Women's North American Champion Tatum Paxley, but she didn't get to celebrate that win for long tonight on "NXT." She opened the show to cut a promo about her victory, but before she could talk about much other than doing it all herself after breaking out of the shadow of Sol Ruca, she was interrupted by the entire current NXT Women's Championship field. While all love all these women, I hate a promo parade, especially one where those responding to the initial promo don't quite make sense.Things were already difficult to start for the heel Zaria, with the WWE Performance Center crowd, rightfully so, chanting to tell her she deserved the win. She was then interrupted first by the first-ever Women's North American Champion, Kelani Jordan, who quite literally told her, "you don't have the title I'm looking for," so she was just out there to give Zaria advice. I thought maybe, since Jordan was defeated by Kendal Grey last week to become number one contender for Lola Vice's championship, that maybe she was stepping up to Zaria for some kind of interesting heel-vs-heel matchup. Sadly, that wasn't the case, as Grey and Vice followed Jordan out shortly after.Vice told Zaria to do them all a favor and get over Ruca, which I didn't mind as a line, actually, but then, she proceeded to cut a promo on Jordan and Grey over her NXT Women's title, as if Zaria wasn't even there. I just didn't love that they all had to continue their feud over a different title, as Zaria was trying to gloat about her own accomplishment.Then Robert Stone came out to make a match, and Vice, who has obviously watched the WWE product before, said she got it, and knew it was going to be her and Grey vs. Jordan and Zaria in a tag match later. I knew I wasn't going to mind the match at all, as these are all great talents, but the way we got to booking this match was really, really lame. If the match had to happen at all, it could have been done the opposite way, with Zaria interrupting the women competing around the top title, but not saying a word, just beating them all down, only to be forced to team with Jordan or something.Zaria has deserved better for awhile now, and maybe that's why this rubbed me the wrong way. Hopefully after Great American Bash, as she's not currently set to defend her title there, she can get involved in a hot story of her own.Written byDaisyRuth
It's been nearly a year since Tavion Heights left the No Quarter Catch Crew due to his desire for more singles opportunities. So far, none of those singles opportunities have panned out in his favor. After tonight, though, I'm hopeful that the former Olympian can turn things around.With some help from his former NQCC stablemate Myles Borne, Heights earned an NXT North American Championship match at the Great American Bash. The opponent? Borne himself. Despite their former partnership, which included a pursuit of the NXT Tag Team Championship, Heights made it clear after the fact that he didn't need or want Borne's assistance in the present day. Those remarks suggest that a Heights heel turn could potentially be awaiting us at the Great American Bash, and honestly, it may be just what Heights needs to take him to the next level.Over the last year, Heights has fallen short in his attempts to capture the NXT North American Championship and the Men's Speed Championship. In April, Heights then laid out NXT Champion Tony D'Angelo, asserting that he'd come for everything he deserved, including D'Angelo's title. When the two squared off the following week, however, D'Angelo's title wasn't even in play. Heights also walked away with a loss, rendering me confused as to why booking even called for him to attack D'Angelo in the first place.I'm not sure what will happen at the Great American Bash, but for now, I'm satisfied with the fact that Heights, a stellar technician, is gaining some much-needed momentum (which will hopefully lead him to his first title win in WWE).Written byElla Jay
Maybe it's my Pittsburgh girlie bias showing, but Thea Hail not getting a simple televised victory in the Women's Speed tournament, of all things, kind of sucks, especially when Izzi Dame straight up said last week that she didn't want to be involved. Dame was not happy when Shawn Spears announced he got her in the mix, and that's a lot of the reason why Hail should have scored the victory here, even if she would go on to lose to either Arianna Grace next week, or preferably, Wren Sinclair at Great American Bash.Hail hasn't won a televised match on "NXT" since a loss to Kelani Jordan on the March 24 edition of the show. If she's still being punished for her botched victory over Blake Monroe for the Women's North American Championship back in December, whoever is upset in creative really needs to get over it. She really could have used the victory here, and it would have furthered the ongoing breakup storyline for The Culling. Which is yet another WWE storyline that seems like it's going to be drug out for far too long. It's already pushing it.It was just stuck in my brain for the entire three-ish minutes that Dame asked Spears last week why she would want to be in the Speed tournament. Way to bury the title that's already at the absolute bottom of the totem pole. We all know it, "NXT," you don't have to remind us, we're just watching to have a good time. Dame could at least act somewhat excited that she's in the tournament to potentially have some gold again, since it's not like she's just going to throw the match for no reason.I'm a big fan of Hail's and follow her on Instagram, and she's such a fun personality who could easily bring ALL of that energy she has on social media to her "NXT" character. We saw it a little bit tonight with her shotgunning an energy drink on the way to the ring, which I thought was really cute. She's been in "NXT" long enough and, in my eyes, at least, has proven herself time and time again, despite how young she is. She should really be getting some more opportunities, even if they are small, like a shot at the Women's Speed title.Written by DaisyRuth
While we may not entirely agree with tonight's Women's Speed Championship tournament results, the fact that we are finally on track to seeing the title defended is wonderful. Two weeks ago, my call for Women's Speed Championship airtime felt like it'd be lost in the abyss. "WWE NXT" quickly proved me wrong the following week when the defending champion, Wren Sinclair, insisted that she wanted a challenger imminently, thus tonight's official tournament kickoff.We as "NXT" TV fans have not seen this particular title up for grabs since March 17, when Sinclair dethroned Fallon Henley on the Booker T Appreciation Night special. As I stated before, that means that the Women's Speed Title has taken a backseat for three whole months, while the Men's iteration has been featured in two tournaments of its own.To make up for that, "NXT" has announced that Sinclair's first title defense will take place at the Great American Bash, a premium live event. Speed Titles rarely see the PLE spotlight, which makes this upcoming title match either against Izzi Dame or Arianna Grace seem like a big deal.Sinclair's knee injury has hindered her ability to wrestle in recent weeks, but assuming she's even at 50%, I trust that she, and her impressive selling skills, can make the title appear a bigger deal, and more importantly, get it back on at least a semi-regular schedule.Written byElla Jay
Nattie fought just her fifth singles match this year during this week's "WWE NXT," looking to prove her point that Jaida Parker had gotten soft as is the onus of a veteran who only gets booked as a would-be litmus test for younger talent.Aside from her Bloodsport appearance against Shayna Baszler and a cameo in the Royal Rumble, Nattie has wrestled Maxxine Dupri three times and lost a three-way qualifier for the Elimination Chamber. And now she was facing Parker, having pointed out she had gotten soft after falling short a few times.Parker has had a "two steps forward and three steps back" time of it this year, wrestling to a double count-out with Blake Monroe before going on to lose in the rematch. She similarly picked up a win over Kelani Jordan before losing to her in the rematch, and Jordan is now creeping around the NXT title picture. And then she suffered a bit of an upset to Kali Armstrong.Point being, it would seem as though the program was designed to be a renaissance of sorts for Miss Parker, facing a veteran who can and often does lose. But Nattie not only got the win but she did so via submission.It's going to be hard to make a counter-point to the "soft" descriptor when you tapped out, especially in a world where everyone and their cousin seems to be opting for the pass-out route. But more to the point, why is Parker losing Nattie here?There will likely be a rematch, but that doesn't require one to go over rather than the other. Unless Nattie is going to be experiencing some form of long-running renaissance of her own, she doesn't need to be tapping prospects out after decimating their character. There's got to be some catharsis, and it cannot just come in the form of losing one match and winning one other even if the second one is an Underground match.To take one of your more exciting prospects and hand them a submission loss to someone who has been firmly rooted to the gatekeeper role on the main roster immediately devalues one without effecting the value of the other. Nattie isn't going to be taking the momentum from this win and doing something of note, but Parker tapping out is a worsening problem for her in that she cannot get the big or even the marginally larger wins.Written by Max Everett
Contract signings can get repetitive and tedious to watch in professional wrestling, as they tend to follow a bit of a basic formula. One person will say some words and sign the contract, the other person will do the same, and then a brawl breaks out that results in someone going through the table. "NXT" did something different with Tony D'Angelo and Naraku's contract signing for their Great American Bash NXT Championship match, and I actually think it ended up really paying off.Having two intense characters like D'Angelo and Naraku meet under the cover of darkness and reference some of the no-good deeds they've done in the past was a fantastic tonal choice. Although it was meant to be somewhat serious, it still felt like a really fun choice to have them meet in this manner and made for an engaging watch. Yes, leaving it on a cliffhanger with Naraku saying he would sign the contract in his own time may have been a bit unnecessary. I also think that it did create some extra intrigue to things and acted as a bit of a power play from Naraku in the midst of a storyline that's been heavily focused on mind games. All in all, I was a big fan of this one and appreciated that it was a different take on a contract singing than the norm.Written by Olivia Quinlan
