I know I’ve said that I’m glad Saquon Shugars is out of DarkState and is now hopefully going to be able to shine on his own very soon, but that “very soon” was not tonight, as he was nowhere to be seen. Until the very last few seconds of the broadcast, however, which changed over to the local news so fast it was hard to see him standing menacingly on a trailer in the “NXT” parking lot as his former stablemates left the building. Even if the camera did linger for a few more seconds, that’s all he was doing. Standing there.

Dion Lennox, Osiris Griffin, and Cutler James opened up the show with a promo attempting to explain themselves and just why they kicked Shugars out of the group. First, I could barely take them seriously when Shugars’ mask in their entrance graphic was just covered with a big, red “X” rather than being removed from the graphic entirely, which made it look really cheesy.

It can probably be chalked up to the fact that these guys are quite literally in developmental and still learning, but they also failed to play to the crowd at all during the opening segment, which made it really hard to get through. Rather than acknowledge the boos and chants, even with a passing “shut up” or something, Griffin, Lennox, and James seemed to just race through their lines. I know there can be some passionate hecklers in that Performance Center crowd, and some probably should be ignored, but it kind of took me out of it all, as we’ve seen plenty of developmental talent still playing up to and acknowledging the crowd.

The fact that Shugars didn’t run out to take out his former stable was really lame. Sure, he went through the commentary desk last week, but he could have come out with his ribs taped up for something. He was the toughest guy in DarkState by a mile, and his just lurking in the shadows at the end of the show was really, really dumb.

I’m assuming he’ll get involved next week during DarkState’s tag match against North American Champion Myles Borne and Tavion Heights, but there’s already a lot of story in that match with the tension between Borne and Heights. It would have made plenty more sense for him to get involved and save the opening promo segment, which would have set a better, more chaotic tone for the rest of the night.

Written by Daisy Ruth