2 things that went right on the May 24 episode of NXT 2.0

As someone who cheers for the Baltimore Orioles, a team that has lost over 100 games in three of the last four seasons, watching NXT 2.0 provides a surprisingly similar viewing experience (though the Orioles, at least through May 25, have risen to a level of budding respectability).

At the moment, both entities are undergoing significant rebuilding projects that have come at the cost of a quality product in the present. As a result, watching either on a consistent basis can be a challenge, but in both cases, sitting through some rough moments, but those brief snapshots of the future can sometimes make the not-so-picturesque moments worth it.

Those brief snapshots are what we’re here to discuss today.

These are two things that went right on the May 24 episode of NXT 2.0.

Roxanne Perez moves on to the finals of the women’s Breakout Tournament

The NXT creative team has made some perplexing booking decisions throughout this women’s Breakout Tournament, but one aspect they’ve gotten mostly right is Roxanne Perez’s presentation.

Even though the announcers bring up Perez’s small stature too often and the strategy to treat her like an in-over-her-head rookie contradicts what fans see when she wrestles — not to mention them choosing to portray her as a “happy/lucky to be in WWE” superfan babyface instead of a blue-chip potential top star — but they have at least figured out two ways to get her over with the audience: allow her to show off her in-ring skills and booking her to scrap out tough wins.

That’s what we saw her do in her win over Lash Legend to advance to the Breakout Tournament finals. Legend — a former WNBA player — is a tremendous athlete but is still a work-in-progress in the ring, so they kept this short and simple. The results were fine, mainly because of Perez’s efforts.

Given who the other finalist is and who the NXT Women’s Champion is, Perez should be a lock to win this tournament. But this is WWE we’re talking about, so we’ll see if they make the obvious decision.

Carmelo Hayes and Cameron Grimes chat in a barbershop

NXT generally produces a lot of content that one could easily confuse for a high-end student film in terms of acting and production, but sometimes, we’ll get a segment like the one we saw with Carmelo Hayes and North American Champion Cameron Grimes that almost justifies the entire practice.

Yes, WWE used its nauseating camera cuts throughout this several-minute cutscene, but that was only a slight distraction from Grimes and Hayes getting good shots in on the other over who was the superior North American Champ, including a line where Grimes turned around Hayes’ “A-Champion” nickname and simply referred to him as a champion (aka, just another guy who simply held the belt). Who knew centering a storyline around who the better wrestler is would be so effective?

Anyway, this barbershop segment effectively reinforced the contrast between these men personality-wise (while also showing how similar the two are in terms of their self-confidence), and set up next week’s Grimes vs. Nathan Frazer match, which should be great.