NXT Minus 6: Wrestler of the Year

It’s not too early to tell you the best wrestler in the NXT universe for 2021.

6. Farewell, Aleister Black. It kills me that so many will remember you as “guy in closet.” I will remember you as one of the best strikers in the game. I will also remember you for Black Mass, one of my all-time favorite finishers. You deserved better than you got on RawDown, but you can hang your head high for the work you did in NXT, including the best match in NXT history, your 6-star (yes, six) battle versus Johnny Gargano at War Games II.

5. I like Adam Cole. I don’t love Adam Cole, but that might change. Yes, Karrion Kross is a big, overrated musclehead. I’m telling myself Cole went off script to land Fat Man. Then he launched Little Boy. He doesn’t need pyro or a hot blonde to make him special. What do they do to make Adam Cole special? They ring the bell. Ka-BOOM! That’s more savage than Randy.  

4. If Diamond Mine isn’t the greatest thing since sliced bread, then all these vignettes will be a bigger waste of time than Franky Monet. I don’t think that’s happening, because I’m smelling a swerve. Somebody call my momma!

3. WWE celebrated tag team wrestling last week. NXT celebrates tag team wrestling every week! This week MSK versus Legado Del Fantasma put on a clinic, 4.5 stars. The match within a match between Wes Lee and Joaquin Wilde makes me want to see a lot more of those two. Raul Mendoza is simply the most underrated worker in the company. All around great work from all involved in a place where tag team wrestling still means something.

2. I tried to tell you last week that you didn’t want to miss Noam Dar versus Ijla Dragunov. It was better than I expected, 4.6 stars. Amazing take downs & chain wrestling. Great striking. Great storytelling. Intense and violent. Dragunov yelling in Russian. Seriously, if you aren’t watching NXT UK, you are missing the best hour of the week. But wait. There’s more…

1. Right now, Ilja Dragunov is the NXT Wrestler of the Year, and he’ll have to fall completely off a cliff to lose it. He is a wrestling shape shifter. Every match he does something new and exciting. This week, he threw Noam Dar to the mat at least 10 different ways. Every time he strikes someone, I feel like he’s unleashing decades of pent up anger. He is a special kind of special.