NXT is praised and lauded for being the youth movement in WWE. The breaking ground for new talent that will go on to shape the WWE. But, that's not true. I want you to sit down and think, how many talents has WWE actually created with the NXT Brand that have had lasting success on the main roster? Really think about it, who was homegrown talent for NXT that has gone on to win a championship on the main roster? If you answered Roman Reigns and Big E you're correct.
Now, they've had other home grown talent. The Vaudevillains, who are currently on SmackDown and receiving almost no reaction from the fans. There's Tyler Breeze, who was quickly jobbed out after his main roster debut. There's American Alpha, who will likely be the first tag team NXT has created that will go on to remain relevant. Then there's Baron Corbin who is probably the next homegrown talent to win a championship. But, that's it for homegrown talent. What about the divas? Well the Divas Revolution is made up of women who had been pro wrestlers for 3-6 years before ever entering WWE with the exception of Charlotte.
Additionally, when you watch the NXT show, it's not a bunch of new wrestlers. It's wrestlers that have long made a name for themselves. It's Billy The Terminator making his televised debut, It's Bobby Roode, Samoa Joe, Austin Aires and Shinsuke Nakamura. These guys aren't the next generation, they're the now. They were already stars in other promotions. Calling them the next generation is like calling Kofi Kingston and Dolph Ziggler rising stars.
WWE isn't using NXT to build. They're using it to buy talent from other promotions and store them. That Nakamura guy is doing great in NJPW, we can't make a copy, but we can buy him and keep him from interfering with our main show. You can't make another Samoa Joe, but you can buy him. But here's the thing, they're getting these highly developed top of the line stars. Then storing them in NXT under the description of "learning the WWE style." Only for them to be injured working at a house show in front of a few hundred people because they were paired with a rookie.
We get, we've heard it before, wrestling isn't ballet. Yet, when you put an experienced world traveled star like Hideo Itami in the ring with a few new guys, he's bound to get injured eventually. The top guys in NXT aren't standouts in a class of new wrestlers. The top guys in NXT are career wrestlers who've traveled the world and had a lot of matches where they've taken a lot of bumps. You're just putting them at risk by pairing them up with Joe Nobody for a show in front of 130 fans packed into a gymnasium.
As much as people love NXT it hasn't been all good. It's there for one main reason, that's to pull stars from smaller companies and hope they aren't able to fill the holes fast enough, NXT is not the next generation, it's the same generation working hard to make sure they aren't injured by the new random wrestlers that get pulled in.
You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet
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