WWE NXT - 8/11/2026: 3 Things We Hated & 3 We Loved

The road to Heatwave is...well...heating up. 

Tortured wordplay aside, that means that another edition of "WWE NXT" has come and gone. This week's show was packed with drama and news, as multiple titles were defended, and even more title matches were made for the big show in Texas. There was also the shocking debut of independent wrestling enfant terrible Zilla Fatu. You can read all about it on the WWE NXT 8/11/2026 results page.

All the events of this week's NXT have left the Wrestling Inc. Staff with plenty of feelings, and those feelings have a home: here in the weekly Loved/Hated column. There was plenty to love, even the main event was able to overcome an interference non-finish, and there was plenty to hate, like this long, drawn-out Darkstate storyline. There was also a small amount of division, as the staff found something to love and to hate about the impending unification of the WWE NXT Women's North American and WWE Women's Speed Titles. As always, if you need to keep the conversation going, the comments section will be open to you.

I've done enough introducing. I think you get the point. Let's get into the worst and the best of this week's "WWE NXT."

Here's the thing: there's nothing inherently wrong with the idea that EK Prosper replaced Shawn Spears in the Mixed Tag Team Match that was supposed to pit Lizzy Rain against Izzi Dame and Niko Vance. My problem with it more so comes with how random it all felt.

Prosper has largely been seen on screen over the past few weeks involved in a storyline with Keanu Carver and has been seen coming to the aid of Hank Walker and Tank Ledger, so he really has no business being involved with The Culling now. There are plenty of other babyface men on the roster who aren't really involved in storylines who could've instead been a better match for Rain's partner, whether it was Tate Wilder pouncing on another opportunity to prove himself or Mason Rook who's been floating around in between backstage segments with Kam Hendrix (provided of course that "NXT" held off on the match between Rook and Hendrix for another week).

I also didn't really love that Rain and Prosper were the ones to end up going over in this match. I get that Rey Mysterio needed a reason to put EK Prosper in the Fatal Four-Way Number One Contenders Match for the AAA Cruiserweight Championship next Tuesday, but I also think that Dame and Vance collectively would've benefited from a win more. This rings especially true if my hunch that the reason for Spears' absence in the match was because Dame and Vance attacked him beforehand in order to make it look like he had blown off Rain due to the little pre-match verbal exchange between Rain, Vance, and Dame. If that ends up proving to be true, then it would render the whole thing as being extremely pointless and a lot of work Dame and Vance did for such little payoff.

Written by Olivia Quinlan

It's about dang time.

I've said it here for months, but the fact that Kelani Jordan has never competed in a televised NXT Women's Championship is highly criminal. The former gymnast is one of WWE's best and most exciting in-ring athletes (the influence of Rey Mysterio and Rob Van Dam remains evident); furthermore, she's already proven herself as a trustworthy and credible singles champion (the NXT Women's North American and TNA Knockouts World Championships wave in reference).

That's why tonight's announcement of Jordan's upcoming title match came as a pleasant surprise.

After signing an official match contract, Jordan will challenge Kendal Grey for the NXT Women's Championship, not just at a regular event, but at the "NXT" brand's biggest premium live event of the summer, Heatwave. For Jordan's first on-screen NXT Women's Title match, one couldn't have asked for a much better platform than Heatwave. And frankly, she's more than deserving of it.

With the recent call-ups of Tatum Paxley, Fatal Influence, Blake Monroe, Sol Ruca, and potentially Lola Vice, Jordan is now one of the most tenured performers for "NXT" as well. That means if anyone could put up a reasonable fight against the simultaneous women's wrestling of the AEW All In pay-per-view, it's Jordan and Grey, the woman labeled as the future of WWE by experts.

Regardless of the outcome, I'm happy to see that Jordan's long overdue title bout is finally materializing. Who knows, she might even win it, too.

Written by Ella Jay

Saquon Shugars was officially kicked out of DarkState on the May 19 edition of "NXT," but his feud with the faction's leader, Dion Lennox, is still going strong. While it feels like the feud has been forever long now, the pair have actually only had two televised matches against one another, and one of them was a six-man tag.

Shugars may have got the victory at Great American Bash, but Lennox, Osiris Griffin, and Cutler James left him lying, leading to tonight's singles match, annoyingly weeks later, which was won by Lennox this time. Now that they're tied with one win each, it feels like the pair are headed toward a third bout, likely a stipulation match, at Heatwave, and the longer this goes on, the less interesting it becomes.

Tonight after the loss, Shugars had to be hyped up in the back by Grayson Waller, of all people, which I didn't love. If this was destined to continue, he should have been mad as hell already, waiting around the next corner for Lennox and the others with his baseball bat. My hatred of this all was then taken a step further when Lennox and Shugars' brawl took place in the middle of the Women's North American Championship match. I can't stand when brawls interrupt matches, especially ones for women's titles, and it just felt so unnecessary. "NXT" usually goes for backstage parking lot brawls, which is where this should have stayed, and it arguably would have been more effective. They could have been more brutal, with security still out there to separate them, and the women could have been left alone.

There are a few feuds and storylines that have gone on far too long now in "NXT," including Tavion Heights' impending heel turn, but Shugars being unable to rid himself of DarkState is perhaps the most egregious. That's likely because I just want to see Shugars on his own, doing his own thing. Hopefully that's the case soon, and maybe the Heatwave match will be Shugars and Lennox in a steel cage, to finally put this all to rest, without further DarkState interference. While I'm a bit worried about Shugars' creative moving forward past this all, anything would be better than this feud continuing for another three months.

Written by Daisy Ruth

It was done in such a throwaway backstage segment, but one really cannot complain that a unification match was booked for the Women's Speed and Women's North American titles.

Wren Sinclair challenged for Zaria's North American title, having got the draw to retain her Speed Championship during last week's show. But prior to that, she was involved in a fight alongside Kendal Grey against Kelani Jordan and Kali Armstrong, getting her rear-end handed to her and thus entering the title match beaten up, ultimately losing.

As said, it was just a comment to Robert Stone in a brief backstage segment that saw the unification match booked. But now it is, finally there can be a conclusion to one of the most out-of-place titles. Sinclair has defended the title just twice since winning it in March, and even then it is a title that was originally created for X.

That X deal wrapped up, and the short-form matches made their way to "WWE NXT." But the tournaments have felt like filler at the best of times and largely served just to get in the way of cohesive storytelling.

There's also the historical precedent for the title match itself, given the North American and Speed titles were the ones Sol Ruca held during her run as double champion alongside Zaria as ZaRuca. Zaria lost the North American title on Ruca's behalf, has since recaptured it for herself, but the Speed title was just vacated.

It would be cathartic for Zaria to then be the one to end the title as its last champion, briefly holding the same distinction Ruca held. Sinclair winning, as remote as that chance seems, would certainly be a way of separating her from WrenQCC partner and NXT Women's Champion Kendal Grey.

Written by Max Everett

I simply must disagree with my colleague.

I'm not saying the Women's Speed Championship is the most coveted title belt under the WWE banner. The concept surrounding it brings a fresh and fun element to the "WWE NXT" brand, though.

Often, we see matches either go to great lengths or extremely short ones. Speed competition, meanwhile, lies somewhere right in the middle, forcing wrestlers to show out in a three- or five-minute time frame. It's an environment that benefits face-paced talents; it's also one that pushes the powerhouses to be even more explosive or take flight themselves.

Honestly, I've enjoyed most of the Speed competitions I've witnessed. The announcement of a match unifying the Women's Speed Title and NXT Women's North American Championships has me believing that joy will soon be stripped away.

WWE will likely preserve the NXT Women's North American Championship likeness, and they should. That respective title means more, especially as it emerged as the first-ever mid-card title available to the women of WWE. Part of me, however, fears that value will get muddled in the unification process.

What will this unified title actually look like? Will it get a name change? And will its existence eradicate women's Speed matches? Given WWE's history with unified titles, I'm not sure I will like all of, if any, the answers to these questions.

Written by Ella Jay

After all the chatter over what feels like a full year at this point, and even with the reports as "NXT" was going on the air about him being at the WWE Performance Center after signing a contract, I did not expect Zilla Fatu to make his debut tonight and cause chaos in the main event. Fatu caused the no-contest in the number one contender's bout for the NXT Championship, pitting Cruz Montana against Grayson Waller, adding some further intrigue into the upcoming title match at Heatwave.

I think it felt like more of a surprise, as it was Montana's first match in "NXT" since signing with WWE. That, and it was Waller's first bout back on the developmental brand, after delivering one heck of a promo putting the entire locker room, in addition to NXT Champion Tony D'Angelo, on notice a few weeks ago. The match already felt big, as big as a Waller match on "NXT" television in 2026 can, so it didn't feel like a debut was in the cards. I fully expected some kind of messy finish to guarantee a triple threat at Heatwave, maybe with some D'Angelo involvement causing the no contest, but not another new face in the mix.

Before Fatu's involvement, I thought both Waller and Montana had a strong showing in the match. Waller got in a lot more offense than I expected, and they had quite a bit of time to cook before Fatu's interference. The Performance Center crowd was all in on Montana, which was really cool to hear, and WWE has a certified babyface on its hands with him in this multi-man feud. I think the pair worked really well together, and just as Montana was going for the pin to put Waller away after finally connecting with the Spin the Block, Fatu appeared.

Fatu hit two big splashes from the top rope to both competitors, then stared down D'Angelo, who was stationed at the commentary desk. I love that "NXT," a brand where the men's division is notoriously not as strong as the women's, keeps bringing in guys and elevating them right to the top to keep things interesting as the weeks roll on. We saw it first with Naraku, assumed it was happening with Mason Rook, and now we have Montana and Fatu in the mix.

I admit, I was pulling for a Montana victory here for him to win the gold at Heatwave, or even for a triple threat somehow, but I'm always going to love a surprise debut. This all may feel a little messy in the next two weeks ahead of the PLE, but I am definitely interested in what's going to happen.

Written by Daisy Ruth