A good portion of what was set up and/or advertised at WWE NXT Deadline has already been completely retconned, brushed aside, or altered in such a way to really call into question why WWE would book storylines to go in one way, only to contradict and go in another direction merely a few days later.
In some ways, this was minimal, but still questionable. For instance, Hank Walker and Tank Ledger were advertised to be making their return, and while that is technically true in the sense that they were on the show, it was only in a video package and a backstage interview segment to set up a match for next week, instead.
Along with that was how time was dedicated on Deadline to a segment about Blake Monroe talking to NXT General Manager Ava about wanting to have an open challenge for the NXT Women's North American Championship. Ava warned her that this was a bad idea, but Monroe wanted it. When the time came for that segment to go down, a large number of women from the roster came out all at the same time. Thea Hail ran into the ring from the opposite side, put Monroe in a submission hold and immediately made her tap out. Despite there being no referee, Hail celebrated as if she had won the title in 30 seconds, and no referee came out. The next segment just rolled on with Shiloh Hill winning his debut match against Lexis King.
Later, Ava and Monroe had a discussion backstage where Ava said that she is granting Hail a shot at the NXT Women's North American Championship against Monroe for next week, meaning the intention was to just set up an angle to set up a match for December 16th, rather than to have an actual title defense on this show, which could have gone down in any number of ways that didn't directly state a match would be happening that didn't take place in any fashion.
If you thought the Iron Survivor Challenge match, which was specifically for a title shot at NXT New Year's Evil, would result in a title match at New Year's Evil, apparently that is also wrong. Je'Von Evans somehow was able to just challenge Oba Femi for the belt on tonight's episode, and lost when Ricky Saints turned heel to pull the referee out of the ring, stopping a potential three-count that would have netted Evans the title.
Evans, who was attacked by Tony D'Angelo at the end of Deadline, does not seem to be feuding with D'Angelo now that Saints has turned heel, and since D'Angelo went ahead and attacked Ethan Page tonight, too.
Also, Ava announced that there will be a Fatal 4-Way match next week to determine the new No. 1 contender who will fight for the NXT Championship at New Year's Evil, since Evans just used up that opportunity already.
To break this down and expose how awkward the storyline is: D'Angelo attacked the #1 contender (Evans) who earned a title shot for January 6th (which instead happened on December 9th) for no reason because he's actually going for a different champion (Ethan Page), and Evans lost this match because the previous champion turned heel because he wants to win the title back first, but there will also be a Fatal 4-Way match to determine who gets the January 6th match with the people who failed to win the last match, with a setup that none of them are involved in because Saints and Evans and Femi are all intertwined, all while Femi prepares to face Cody Rhodes at Saturday Night's Main Event which is about John Cena's retirement, which was a focal point of Page's promo to set up D'Angelo attacking him. What?!
If you can make sense of that, you should certainly leave your predictions in the comments below about what is going to happen on next week's episode!