Wrestling shows often have a tendency to rely on surprising results and big changes to maintain audience interest, but if there’s one thing WWE appears to have learned in recent years, it’s the value of taking your time and building up a champion, so that both their reign and its eventual ending actually means something. Over the course of two weeks, Gold Rush presented no fewer than six title matches, and given that the event was branded around championship defenses, you’d be forgiven for expecting at least one of those belts to change hands. But they didn’t. All six titles on the line, including all four on the line on Tuesday, were successfully defended, and in the wrestling business, you don’t see that very often. Forsaking the thrill of the title change and relying entirely on match quality and storytelling is a gutsy choice, but it was a choice that paid off for “NXT.”

All four title matches were uniformly excellent. Thea Hail lost, but did so in a fashion that emphasized the strengths of the Chase U stable and heralded an important return (more on that later). We’re not terribly interested in Gallus or their current title reign, but Blade and Inofe very much looked like they belong in the championship picture and made the contest far more exciting than we’d expected. Nathan Frazer and Dragon Lee put on an absolute masterclass in the Heritage Cup match, rendering our faint distaste for the complicated rules system utterly irrelevant in the face of such an athletically superlative battle. And Baron Corbin not only put on what might be the best singles match of his career against Carmelo Hayes, he did so using his old “Lone Wolf” persona and music, which was a massive treat for those of us who still light candles for “NXT” Black & Gold. Moreover, Hayes — who has started to look suspiciously like he’s main roster-bound, putting the outcome of this match very much in question — cemented the legitimacy of his title reign with a hard-fought statement win over an established main roster star.

No championships changed hands, but the results didn’t really matter. What mattered were the matches, and most importantly, the stories behind the matches, and in that crucial area, Gold Rush shined.