WWE NXT Level Up Review - July 8, 2022

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Dante Chen def. Myles Borne

It's weird that Chen has been relegated to a role where he's around to work with the up-and-coming talent when he's an up-and-coming talent himself. He's smooth in the ring and they tried to flesh out his character not too long ago on NXT TV, but they never actually gave him a sustained push, so it wasn't a strong effort. This was fairly brief, but I actually liked what we got from them as they worked well together and it didn't feel as "developmental" compared to most matches on this program.

Yulisa Leon def. Arianna Grace

As I've said before, Grace certainly has a presence about her, and with more seasoning, she'll be one to watch for in NXT's women's division. Leon is a bit more experienced because she's been around longer. I didn't have high hopes for this outing, but it wound up exceeding expectations and being perfectly passable, especially considering it lasted over five or six minutes and that usually leads to more botches or awkward spots.

Edris Enofe and Malik Blade def. Bryson Montana and Damaris Griffin

It's clear they're going all in on Enofe and Blade seeing as how they were interviewed backstage earlier in the episode and received mic time right before the bout. Enofe has a ton of charisma and Blade is really impressive in the ring from what I've seen, so the duo has potential. Meanwhile, Montana and Griffin had decent showings and it was a solid match on the whole. I couldn't have done without the ringside distraction from Quincy Elliott, though. That was completely random. Do they intend to follow up on it?

Overall Show

Level Up isn't a show where you're going to find any bangers, but from an in-ring standpoint, this was a quality episode (at least by the standards of this program). I wasn't a fan of the finish to the main event, but otherwise, this was an adequate edition of Level Up that offered a taste of what the future of NXT 2.0 might look like. As previously mentioned, a lot of these guys and girls can go far, but that's assuming they don't get released before they have a chance to get going.

SEE MORE: NXT Level Up Reviews