The NXT Discussion Thread

[BarryOVega]

Missed the midcarders being featured much this week but understandable given they're building up Heatwave

Should do Fin's out Hot or Not feature for the NXT roster at some point but all I can be bothered to do is say I don't rate the following to do anything in future, no doubt one of them will end up main eventing Mania one day

Finlay's son, Stacks, Sean Legacy (mainly due to the shite name), the two in Dark state who aren't Dion Lennox, the nameless women they usually show in the dressing room when Kali Armstrong or someone is ranting and sadly, I really don't see Tony D doing anything on the main roster if he ever moves up

[BarryOVega]

Stunning booking in the NA title match, cocky heel with his knobhead mates and Amazonian girlfriend/bodyguard valiantly overcomes a knackered ankle to spotlessly beat the babyface without needing any interference whatsoever, made Heights look amazing that 

 

[BarryOVega]

Pretty shite episode this week, main event was terrible, Waller/Rook should be something a bit different at least 

Promo segment that started with Kelani was terrible too, only decent bits of the show were Zilla/DVD/Legacy (Sean Legacy is still the worst name going though) brawling with Birthright and the full on Borne heel turn

Was a really inconsequential part of the show but Megastar Izzi Dame showing how natural she is with talking compared to 95% of the rest of the roster (I'm including the main roster and all the men) is laughable, if she doesn't make it as a star on the main roster in the next few years they might as well give up

[I Bent My Wookie]

Expect a Mason Hook push incoming. Cenas done an interview this week praising him and being astounded by his ability and how excited he was to meet him during Rooks tryout. 

Wouldn't be surprised to see the belt go onto him soon. 

[DavidB6937]

42 minutes ago, I Bent My Wookie said:

Expect a Mason Hook push incoming. Cenas done an interview this week praising him and being astounded by his ability and how excited he was to meet him during Rooks tryout. 

Wouldn't be surprised to see the belt go onto him soon. 

He's been saying that since his signing though.

[Chili]

1 hour ago, DavidB6937 said:

He's been saying that since his signing though.

Ugh, someone hasn't changed his settings, probably lost the instruction manual.

[RedTwoster]

On 9/16/2026 at 9:11 AM, BarryOVega said:

Was a really inconsequential part of the show but Megastar Izzi Dame showing how natural she is with talking compared to 95% of the rest of the roster (I'm including the main roster and all the men) is laughable, if she doesn't make it as a star on the main roster in the next few years they might as well give up

Honestly, if I was Triple H or Nick Khan I'd be looking at the male side of the roster feeling genuinely worried. You have Trick Williams and Oba Femi, but outside of that it's genuinely difficult to see where the next generation of stars are. 

On the women's side it's an embarrassment of riches, if they weren't so stuck in their ways the very easy solution would be simply pushing female wrestlers as their top stars or co-top stars going forward. 

[Lion_of_the_Midlands]

1 hour ago, RedTwoster said:

Honestly, if I was Triple H or Nick Khan I'd be looking at the male side of the roster feeling genuinely worried. You have Trick Williams and Oba Femi, but outside of that it's genuinely difficult to see where the next generation of stars are. 

On the women's side it's an embarrassment of riches, if they weren't so stuck in their ways the very easy solution would be simply pushing female wrestlers as their top stars or co-top stars going forward. 

Bron Breakkkkkkker is star material, just need to get him away from the rest of those Vision losers, especially when Scotty Steiner's lad turns up now he's been cut by the Saints. The Breakker Bredren smashing the granny out of Austin Theory and Logan Paul before going on a path of destruction is a future I hope to see. 

If you haven't seen Scott's lad Google Brock Rechsteiner. He's a fucking unit. 

Edited Monday at 05:38 PM by Lion_of_the_Midlands
Tim Cahill

[HarmonicGenerator]

4 hours ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

Bron Breakkkkkkker is star material, just need to get him away from the rest of those Vision losers, especially when Scotty Steiner's lad turns up now he's been cut by the Saints. The Breakker Bredren smashing the granny out of Austin Theory and Logan Paul before going on a path of destruction is a future I hope to see. 

If you haven't seen Scott's lad Google Brock Rechsteiner. He's a fucking unit. 

Bron Breakker and… Brok Breakker? The Breakker Bros? I’m never going to see them unless it’s the Royal Rumble or maybe WrestleMania, but I want this.

[BarryOVega]

14 hours ago, RedTwoster said:

Honestly, if I was Triple H or Nick Khan I'd be looking at the male side of the roster feeling genuinely worried. You have Trick Williams and Oba Femi, but outside of that it's genuinely difficult to see where the next generation of stars are. 

On the women's side it's an embarrassment of riches, if they weren't so stuck in their ways the very easy solution would be simply pushing female wrestlers as their top stars or co-top stars going forward. 

It's odd how Hunter happily put Banks and Charlotte in the main event of big NXT shows years ago yet seemingly won't do the same for the women on the main roster now, especially when under Vince of all people had 3 main event Mania 35

In regards to the men, it'll be interesting to see if Hunter really is a Nazi considering the amount of black talent they have, Keanu Carver looks the absolute part and just needs booking as a killer for now, he has that natural charisma though where you can easily picture him on talk shows with the belt

[DavidB6937]

36 minutes ago, BarryOVega said:

It's odd how Hunter happily put Banks and Charlotte in the main event of big NXT shows years ago yet seemingly won't do the same for the women on the main roster now, especially when under Vince of all people had 3 main event Mania 35

I don't think it's a 'wont' but I can't think of many scenarios where they've booked the women well enough on the main roster to warrant a main event. More of a failing on the writing than anything. 

[RedTwoster]

14 hours ago, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

Bron Breakkkkkkker is star material, just need to get him away from the rest of those Vision losers, especially when Scotty Steiner's lad turns up now he's been cut by the Saints. The Breakker Bredren smashing the granny out of Austin Theory and Logan Paul before going on a path of destruction is a future I hope to see. 

 

You're right, I guess I subconsciously looked at him as being more established on the main roster than he actually is. Certainly, the current group of male wrestlers on NXT is about as underwhelming as it's ever been. 

32 minutes ago, DavidB6937 said:

I don't think it's a 'wont' but I can't think of many scenarios where they've booked the women well enough on the main roster to warrant a main event. More of a failing on the writing than anything. 

I also think the early years of actually treating female wrestlers seriously would have been affected by the fact they initially had a very small group of extremely talented wrestlers, and then you had the remnants of the former divas division. These days though, you're completely right - they have the best women's roster they've ever had with genuine 'top star' candidates among them (Rhea Ripley being the most obvious). Frequently, female wrestlers are having the stand-out match on any given show, there's no reason why they couldn't be closing events really. 

Same goes for AEW - you have a real golden generation there with Mercedes, Willow, Toni Storm, Thekla and others, it's mad that they're yet to close a show - although I'm optimistic that we'll see it happen at Wrestledream. 

[BomberPat]

A lot of the focus on women's wrestling in WWE came off the back of Ronda Rousey; not just in the hope that they would sign her, or present her as a top star once they eventually got her, but because she was becoming a massive crossover name proving that a woman could headline in the UFC, and they were following that lead. It definitely feels like they stepped back from bothering to present the women as top stars once it stopped being politically expedient for them to do so. But the good thing is that - and this is a rare moment of me giving WWE credit - they have at least built up women's wrestling to a point that while the ceiling isn't as high as it was a few years ago, the floor is much higher than it's ever been, so it's never going to regress back to the bad old days of blatant titillation and advertised women's matches constantly being cut for time. 

With AEW, I'm amazed the women still haven't main evented. Mercedes Moné in particular is such a main event act that it's mad it hasn't happened yet. I do think that the Hollywood Ending would have main evented if Mariah May hadn't been on the way out of the door - you don't want to hand the competition the bragging rights of having just signed one of your main event acts.

I have heard when it comes to AEW's TV at least that there's some pressure from WBD to limit to one or two women's matches per show on TV; presumably that doesn't carry over to PPV, though with them airing on HBO Max, I suppose it could? If you look to ROH as an example of what a Tony Khan-produced wrestling show without the pressure of TV companies and sponsors looks like, they have had women's matches main event, and often have multiple women's matches on a show. I wonder if WWE have similar pressures from any of their corporate overlords.

[tiger_rick]

Agree with Pat and Twoster about the overall quality of the women in WWE, on average, they're about 3000% better than they were years ago. This isn't me just sticking the boot into them because I hate them, but the elephant in the room is the fact that they put the women in TV main events and PPV main events as a PR excercise. The whole Women's revolution was off the back of a social media campaign and instead of building to anything organically, they just had Stephanie come out and do their favourite - tell not show. 

Those women were super talented and Ronda came in as a big name but they did it all so they could tell everyone how progressive they were. You still had Saudi shows with no women on, or women wrestling in Power Ranger outfits and Mickie James being chucked out on the street with her stuff in a bin bag. Their women's only PPV was only there to deflect criticism from the Saudi Shitshows. They were so progressive, it took seven years to have a second one.

I don't actually mind women being secondary for the most part. I'm a big supporter of women's sport, football particularly (and obviously), but I don't like women's combat sports. No matter how incredible a Katie Taylor or Ronda Rousey is, I still don't love watching it. I'm not quite as prudish when it comes to wrestling, for obvious reasons, but there's still something a little off about it that means I'm only invested when it's really good. Becky Lynch's run that time, the horsewomen in NXT, Britt Baker being the best act in AEW, Toni Storm being the most brilliant wrestler in the World, Toni & Mariah, Willow Nightingale being a generationally brilliant babyface. Those things needed highlighting.

Otherwise, I don't have any issue with the women being on the level of the midcard men. There's an honesty to it that they're good but not the reason people are buying the show. There should be no problem with that being the case. From a representation POV, there is much better representation for young girls and women on all the shows now. WWE, NXT, AEW, TNA, they all feature women in tons of roles. When those women cross that threshold into genuine drawing cards, as they definitely have done, then that should be rewarded too. But not just because you want to tell the world how progressive you are, without ever being progressive.

Edited Tuesday at 09:45 AM by tiger_rick

[RedTwoster]

5 minutes ago, tiger_rick said:

Otherwise, I don't have any issue with the women being on the level of the midcard men. There's an honesty to it that they're good but not the reason people are buying the show. There should be no problem with that being the case. From a representation POV, there is much better representation for young girls and women on all the shows now. WWE, NXT, AEW, TNA, they all feature women in tons of roles. When those women cross that threshold into genuine drawing cards, as they definitely have done, then that should be rewarded too. But not just because you want to tell the world how progressive you are, without ever being progressive.

You're right about WWE's shift being motivated by perception/PR - but I suppose my counterpoint to this would be that if you don't present an act as being main event level, how can they possibly cross that threshold? I think it's hard to argue that the likes of Mercedes Mone, Rhea Ripley, Toni Storm, Willow Nightingale, Thekla and Becky Lynch have become every bit as valuable to their companies as any top male wrestler.