Apollo Crews
Make no mistake, lots of people made a great impression on tonight’s event. However, the most important impression one has to make is their first, and Apollo Crews delivered.
Having a bad first match would have been heavily debilitating to Apollo’s future in the company, as fans can be pretty harsh and unforgiving. However, his match with Tye Dillinger was a great exhibition of his skill set without being just a boring squash match.
Crews looked like he felt right at home in WWE when he made his entrance and showed off agility, speed, and power to a level where he could easily be one of the biggest talking points coming out of this event.
Finn Balor
It’s hard not to make a list like this when you’ve retained the top championship on the show by winning the main event, so Finn Balor almost by default had to be in the top three.
Defeating someone as good as Kevin Owens is reason enough for him to be #2, but some other factors include his entrance being upgraded just a tad more on the awesome scale than it already was and the Coup de Grace from the top of the ladder.
Owens stole a good portion of the spotlight away from him, though, which hinders him a bit and is one of the reasons why he’s not the #1 rank on this list. This was a great showing in a very solid match, but one person just overshadowed him.
Bayley
Without question, the biggest title in NXT is the NXT Championship itself, which is why that match went on last. That being said, there was something extra special about the treatment given to the NXT Women’s Championship tonight.
Stephanie McMahon’s introduction of the match and the buzz going into it with this “Divas Revolution” was in full force and it would not be surprising to find that many fans were looking forward to this match most of all.
Bayley’s success story was a better tale being told than that between Finn Balor and Kevin Owens, illustrated by the celebration after the match with the Four Horsewomen. It’s very rare that WWE allows heels to break character and in this scenario, Sasha Banks joining in the support for Bayley really gave her an extra boost.
Along with this, the in-ring action seen here was on par if not better than in the main event. It’s amazing that the women’s division can have matches as good as this and then run into the problems that have plagued the company for years.
Bayley was one of the biggest stars going into this event as it was, but she definitely left on top of the world after her incredibly important title win here.
