The NXT Discussion Thread

[tiger_rick]

Just me who reads that with the dread of this all ending with fucking "Sterling James Keenan is All Elite"?

[King Mal the Glorious]

I think I'd be OK with that if it was a one off consisting of Nigel battering him for 5 minutes.

[Arch Stanton]

I have no strong opinion either way on Corey Graves as a commentator, but throwing a wobbly about being moved around the teams is a proper bad look for him. 

[BigJag]

He looked visibly annoyed on NXT. Definitely had a mard on.

[Hannibal Scorch]

1 hour ago, BigJag said:

He looked visibly annoyed on NXT. Definitely had a mard on.

He has to sit and hear Booker T talk next to him for 2 hours. I’d rather be waterboarded.

[BrodyGraham]

NXT have had some bad commentators over the years, but Booker is the worst by several degrees. He makes Percy Watson sound like Jesse Ventura.

Edited January 14, 2025 by BrodyGraham

[air_raid]

2 hours ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

I’d rather be waterboarded.

I always misread "waterboarded" as "motorboated." Which is a sentiment I can get on board with watching certain episodes of NXT.

[Snitsky's back acne]

So apparently it's an angle as Graves has announced that he will 'say more on NXT'. 

Im not against this in theory, depending on where it's going. 

[Hannibal Scorch]

3 minutes ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

So apparently it's an angle as Graves has announced that he will 'say more on NXT'. 

Im not against this in theory, depending on where it's going. 

[The King Of Swing]

Highlight of Corey Graves entire WWE career, was that time Byron Saxton told him to shut up.

[FLips]

My second week watching NXT and probably the last. There's next to zero starpower there anymore is there?

I don't know what happened to their developmental but back in the day NXT was fab for spotting new up and coming stars and surprise signings from the indies working their way up to the main roster. In the last 2 weeks I've not seen anyone to get excited about other than maybe Oba Femi and Ethan Page, but I've seen Ethan Page for years in AEW and he hasn't improved at all past a solid midcarder. Maybe Charlie Dempsey and Lexis King will make the main roster but I don't fancy their chances once they're there.

Some of these NXT chumps though must be NXT lifers. Andre Chase, Ridge Holland, Tony D'Angelo, Axiom.

The commentary is brutal with Booker T. I think they had technical difficulties too as I went 10 minutes at the start without hearing a word to suddenly Booker T with his mic turned up full screaming in my ears. Say what you want about Corey Graves throwing a fanny fit but give me him over Booker T every day of the week, even if he does hate being there.
Bayley turned up again at the end of this and was just as pants as she was on Raw. Then the show inexplicably just ended as the fight started? Not sure what that was about.

How is this show beating AEW head to head? It's pretty rubbish.

[Hannibal Scorch]

@FLips hard to disagree. Shotzi beating Steph in a match that made zero sense. Ego Page on an HBK tribute run after losing his smile and showing no development since Impact. And NXT was supposed to be the brand where people tuned their gimmicks before making the main roster. Tony D’Angelo, Andre Chase, Ridge Holland are doing nothing that would resonate on main TV. It feels like a program with no identity anymore.

And I turned off after the backstage brawl because quite frankly Booker T was genuinely hurting my ears. The absolute worst commentator I’ve ever heard.

[DavidB6937]

18 minutes ago, FLips said:

How is this show beating AEW head to head? It's pretty rubbish.

Depends what you're looking for in it really. Can I see many of them moving up to the main roster and being successful in their current gimmicks? Unlikely as you said already.

As an easy watch each week that feels quite different to Raw and Smackdown I do generally enjoy it. I like the different characters and while they might not scream WWE Champion on the whole, I don't really watch it worrying about where they're going next.

Obviously there's a whole different argument to be had about whether it's doing what it should be doing as a brand but as a weekly show I'm happy enough to watch it rather than stressing out about if Andre Chase is going to work on Smackdown or whatever.

I've pretty much enjoyed every iteration of NXT right from the beginning even when they were doing the daft games and promos simply because it was just something a bit different to watch, or the mega-indy era etc. It's probably safe to say there's definitely more talent now that you feel have already hit their ceiling where they are right now but that's not really my problem.

As @Hannibal Scorch said above, the lack of 'identity' of the brand does come from the fact that it's a middling show that is happy to be its own world sometimes but other times wants to be that step up to Raw and Smackdown. It's a mixed bag for sure so I definitely get why a lot of people don't bother with it.

I do not need more Bayley though. Feels like she's everywhere at the moment and my heart sinks every time her awful music comes on.

[FLips]

I just don't understand how the show has regressed so much from the Black and Yellow days. If you look at the amount of amazing talent and feuds that happened there, it genuinely felt like a 3rd main show at some points. I understand we can't constantly have a show full of Nakamura, Sami Zayns, Kevin Owens and Bobby Roodes, but surely we could have more than Shotzi and Dante Chen?

[mim731]

21 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

 Ego Page on an HBK tribute run after losing his smile and showing no development since Impact.

That's a bit harsh I think, he was excellent with Scorpio Sky as part of Men of the Year, and he's definitely carried that over. He's a far more polished performer in character terms as a result of his AEW and NXT runs than he was in TNA.