The NXT Discussion Thread

[Tsurutagun]

Reading some stuff this morning, it's occurred to me that the biggest mistake NXT made was not putting on a proper show on New Years Day 2020. 

They had AEW on the ropes. NXT looked really strong in WWE canon at Survivor Series and on 18/12 they not only beat AEW in total viewers but also in 18-49 which apparently is the real number. NXT was the one with momentum with Rhea Ripley looking like a star after winning the women's title while AEW had an awful show with that Dark Order/Elite angle at the end.

But then on New Years Day, NXT did an awards show while AEW put on a proper show which was the start of the Hangman Page arc. AEW did a really good number close to a million which wouldn't have happened had NXT had done a proper show that night and  they haven't looked back since. 

[RedRooster]

8 minutes ago, Tsurutagun said:

Reading some stuff this morning, it's occurred to me that the biggest mistake NXT made was not putting on a proper show on New Years Day 2020. 

They had AEW on the ropes. NXT looked really strong in WWE canon at Survivor Series and on 18/12 they not only beat AEW in total viewers but also in 18-49 which apparently is the real number. NXT was the one with momentum with Rhea Ripley looking like a star after winning the women's title while AEW had an awful show with that Dark Order/Elite angle at the end.

But then on New Years Day, NXT did an awards show while AEW put on a proper show which was the start of the Hangman Page arc. AEW did a really good number close to a million which wouldn't have happened had NXT had done a proper show that night and  they haven't looked back since. 

In the grand scheme of things, I don't think this matters even slightly. Ultimately, after the Dark Order/Elite ending, AEW gradually got its shit together, while the NXT roster and its programming gradually got shit, together. 

I don't think NXT ever shook off the developmental territory tag, and its non-arena setting didn't help it move on from that, either. Throw in WWE main roster-style booking, and it was always going to be an uphill battle for them to build any sort of momentum. 

[Supremo]

Whilst it’s fun to laugh at Triple H and they deserve everything they get for putting on such a terrible show during the, “war,” I do think this new mandate makes for an even bigger open goal for AEW to take advantage of. Only hiring tall guys under thirty is a terrible idea. Why not just hire the best guys available at any given time, regardless of height or age? All this is going to do is result in even more talented independent guys going to AEW, where the track record is such that they’ll almost certainly succeed and become a star.

I’m not saying the developmental system they previously had was working, it obviously wasn’t, but let’s also not forget that the most successful main roster debut of the last decade or so was AJ Styles. A man who was THIRTY EIGHT and FIVE FOOT ELEVEN when he turned up and instantly became the best guy on the roster, winning the World Title in record time.

Edited August 9, 2021 by Supremo

[Yakashi]

In Vince’s warped mind, popularity tanking coincided with little guys being “pushed”. He won’t believe it’s because his shows are shit and he has no idea what he’s doing anymore. It’s the giving into fans and pushing the midgets that’s caused everyone to stop watching. He gave in with Daniel Bryan and then business went in the toilet. Not because they booked him like shit and made him feud with fucking Kane of course. It’s because he’s a midget. It’s always a self fulfilling prophecy there so that he can say I told you so. It was the same with Rey. Give in and make him champion but prove he was right all along by having him lose to everyone as people lost interest. 
 

And now it’s the midgets that are to blame of course for AEW smashing NXT, selling out almost all the time and almost beating them in the demo. So it’s time to hire big guys again. Wonder what the next excuse is when ratings drop again and AEW starts beating them in the demo every week.

[WyattSheepMask]

14 minutes ago, Supremo said:

Whilst it’s fun to laugh at Triple H and they deserve everything they get for putting on such a terrible show during the, “war,” I do think this new mandate makes for an even bigger open goal for AEW to take advantage of. Only hiring tall guys under thirty is a terrible idea. Why not just hire the best guys available at any given time, regardless of height or age? All this going to do is result in even more talented independent guys going to AEW, where the track record is such that they’ll almost certainly succeed and become a star.

I’m not saying the developmental system they previously had was working, it obviously wasn’t, but let’s also not forget that the most successful main roster debut of the last decade or so was AJ Styles. A man who was THIRTY EIGHT and FIVE FOOT ELEVEN when he turned up and instantly became the best guy on the roster, winning the World Title in record time.

And had the better part of 20 years experience already. If they’re going to be just looking to bring in guys that are tall & under 30 then they also need to look at what kind of experience they have have (if any) and tailor the training to that. And that seems to have been one of the main issues, everyone is learning in the same classes, running the same drills, same promo class etc. Nobody is being moulded to be what they’re best at

[CavemanLynn]

I think people were referring to NXT as a developmental well after it stopped being that though. Whether it was the critical success of the super-indie Takeovers or the natural evolution of the style over the decade, but NXT today has vanished up its own indie wazoo, when the fact is, what the main roster wants is what they've always wanted - big, larger-than-life characters with big moves to pop the crowds and big catchphrases to sell the merch. It's the reverence for the 'art' of wrestling that's ultimately buried NXT.

The agents or the bookers get the blame, but would anyone really begrudge or punish a talent for naturally reacting to the crowd? I doubt Road Dogg told Cesaro to rip up the beach ball with his bare hands that one time. Firings like Peyton Royce after she flat-out admitted to the boss that there wasn't anything marketable about her and she didn't have any ideas is just as bad as someone getting the axe because creative has nothing for them. As good as I thought Buddy Murphy was, my main takeaway from his Van Vliet podcast was that he turned up, did his job, and waited to be told what to do next, and every 'creative' idea he had was that he be paired with the top guys then take their spot. A WWE developmental can't be churning out guys whose main career goal is "I wrestle, I be the best, I become champion."

Cena wasn't setting anywhere alight in the ring; it was when he turned up looking like a doofus and spitting lyrics like a b-boy that he got his first real push. It might've been a bit am dram for some, but Finn Balor knew what he was doing with his entrances when he got through the door - spotlighting his nine-pack and thrusting his 4K-ready junk in the camera as himself, then prowling in paint like an alien sex panther to, bizarrely, get toys flying off the shelves. Even Velveteen Dream, til he completely Aled-Jonesed it, twigged that a bold character, solid mic work, and two or three well-executed moves was what you really needed. If NXT is to continue, that's what it, somehow, needs to get back to, which, sadly, is by putting on a product that is closer to Raw and Smackdown that it is now.

[theringmaster]

My take was NXT was kind of lightening in the bottle but nobody (neither the fans or wwe themselves) realized that. It was seen as an 'alternative' to RAW/Smackdown (despite coming from the same company) but now we have a genuine alternative there isn't a need for a 'in-house alternative'.

The brand suffered terribly from Covid, more than Raw/Sd/Dynamite, it took it back several years. 

 

You really got to wonder about the future of nxt uk and 205 live? Two failed spin off brands that have never managed to achieve profit. I wouldn't be surprised if the NXTUK show is just scrapped and it becomes an annual tournament or something.

[DavidB6937]

8 hours ago, Supremo said:

Something needed to change. It’s been a dead brand ever since Dynamite murdered them. The only people I feel sorry for are the nutters who were somehow still convinced NXT was still a good show and hadn’t nosedived in quality these past few years.

You do realise it's possible to do an analysis on a product without insulting people that enjoy it right? I get that liking WWE and NXT isn't cool anymore but I really don't think we need to be calling people nutters just for enjoying something you don't ??‍♂️

I certainly don't need anyone to feel sorry for me. There has been plenty on NXT I've still enjoyed to this day on a weekly basis. Doesn't mean I think it's at the top of its game or anything but I'm sure we can have these discussions without the personal insults.

[Supremo]

I’m referring to those who think NXT is as good now as it ever was. Sure, Cameron Grimes and The Way can be a good laugh, but come on. Let’s get some perspective.

It’s been one of the more fascinating parts of this, “war.” Seemingly out of nowhere all these tribal maniacs have cropped up, building their personality around whichever side they chose to support. It must be terrible for that lot to justify this in their heads. NXT is the greatest thing ever, hitting home runs every week, and yet half the roster has just been sacked and the lad in charge is losing power and influence by the day.

This made me laugh though. The same man who eighteen months later was trying to play it cool and describing it as an, “imaginary war.” Here he is rallying the troops and talking about having them in a foxhole. The tragic bastard. Back to EWR for you and Shawn, mate. You’ll always have the clips of the tank going to WCW.

 

Edited August 9, 2021 by Supremo

[DCW]

Sack off NXT as a TV show & get it back as a house show tourer with lads/ladies honing an act that has some chance of translating across to TV in mad auld Vince land, and surviving for more than a week or two. Anything else is a waste of time really.

Maybe the carrot could be a 90 minute yearly televised nxt special showcase during Mania or Summerslam weekend or a well built (ha!) Survivor Series match vs Raw & SD with weeks of nxt character vignettes & footage. 

[Liam O'Rourke]

"Congratulations to AEW on a successful premiere. The real winners of last night's head-to-head telecasts of NXT on USA Network and AEW on TNT are the fans, who can expect Wednesday nights to be a competitive and wild ride as this is a marathon, not a one-night sprint."

Remember that? What a barrel of fucking laughs, insisting they would win the long game when they never display patience with anything they do. While I appreciate @Tsurutagun's suggestion about the New Years Day showdown, if NXT was a better promotion, that one night wouldn't have mattered. Case in point, they had the upper hand because AEW had a bad week, but the company bounced back and got its shit together. NXT had a bad week with the awards, and they continued flailing, hot-shotting and counter-punching. 

If people enjoyed (and still enjoy) NXT, absolutely more power to them. Personally, as I said on here before, even if NXT ever had a match that was the best on either show on the night, or a return or angle that was a surprise, I genuinely believe that as an overall show, NXT was never better than AEW. NXT rushed builds, did matches and turns with no reason or explanation (how about that Balor turn and rollback?), did title changes far too often, and nothing was meaning anything. It was WWE chop and change bullshit. I couldn't believe my eyes when NXT invaded Smackdown with Leave It To Beaver Levesque front-and-centre, cutting all the promos looking like your Dad hanging out with teenagers insisting he likes the same music, and the reaction among some folks online was that it was a star-making night for the NXT guys. It absolutely wasn't, and it was alarming that people fell for it to the degree they did. Spoke volumes, in fact. The storylines on NXT have been mostly garbage since halfway through Gargano/Ciampa, before the war even started, when their shitty booking fucked that dynamic up, and I think they've been a deer on ice trying to figure something out ever since. You can give them a pass in that they clearly planned on building around Velveteen Dream, which fell apart for different reasons, but I don't have the faith they would have got that right anyway.

Rather than comparing individual shows, the overarching promotion that is NXT wasn't good enough, and Vince made a hilariously bad decision, one I'm not sure he's made before - he voluntarily walked his company into a war that they could lose. Now they did and he's given up the ghost, NXT needs to serve some kind of purpose, so now he's going more in the direction of the inflexible, WWE-vision of what qualifies as a "star", which you could argue is the very ideology that left the door open for competition in the first place.

Edited August 10, 2021 by Liam O'Rourke

[Tommy!]

20 hours ago, theringmaster said:

You really got to wonder about the future of nxt uk and 205 live?

They still have 5 hours of main TV a week don't they? Now I've not watched for years but I assume it's still as drawn out and repetitive as it was a few years back.

Is there a reason they don't sack off the nxt UKs & 205 lives of the world and just have it as a side show division on the main shows, a bit like the cruiserweights/luchadors were on nitro. Use them as a dollop of throw away variation or self contained story's just bumbling around in thier own world to fill time and avoid burning out the proper stars but that still entertains with flipz & movez? If someone is worth picking up and pushing you just move them on to working with everyone else.

[Statto]

That's basically what they did with the Cruiserweight division when they first brought it back, it was a sub-division of Raw as well as having 205 Live as a standalone show.

It didn't go over hugely well with either live crowds or TV audiences, and eventually got dropped from Raw and semi-absorbed into NXT.

[Vamp]

23 hours ago, Supremo said:

Whilst it’s fun to laugh at Triple H and they deserve everything they get for putting on such a terrible show during the, “war,” I do think this new mandate makes for an even bigger open goal for AEW to take advantage of. Only hiring tall guys under thirty is a terrible idea. Why not just hire the best guys available at any given time, regardless of height or age? All this is going to do is result in even more talented independent guys going to AEW, where the track record is such that they’ll almost certainly succeed and become a star.

I’m not saying the developmental system they previously had was working, it obviously wasn’t, but let’s also not forget that the most successful main roster debut of the last decade or so was AJ Styles. A man who was THIRTY EIGHT and FIVE FOOT ELEVEN when he turned up and instantly became the best guy on the roster, winning the World Title in record time.

Pretty sure they'd still sign AJ Styles now. Styles wasn't signed at 38 to develop. He was signed because he'd proved he could be a star in NJPW and was a main roster signing pushed from the off. He's not really a relevant comparison to make. 

I mean, its not long since everyone was excited about Velveteen Dream (and probably still would be if it wasn't for wrestlers being horrible in real life). That's what they seem to be chasing. I think it should be a more balanced approach personally  and that they're being arseholes with the way they're cutting people, and that ultimately they need better creative and presentation to change the problems they're having but it's not an absurd change of strategy really. 

 

 

[Supremo]

We’re in for a long one. Bad news when they announce a two-out-of-three-falls match and my initial reaction is, “I hope this doesn’t go three falls and they wrap it up in two.”

Still. You can’t fault their logic. Stop Adam Cole from potentially leaving by booking him in a match that lasts until the end of time.

Edited August 11, 2021 by Supremo