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The NXT Discussion Thread


DJM

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I've always found him to be rather bland. Then again, I thought exactly the same thing about Ethan Page before he won me over. Perhaps in an AEW environment he would come into his own. Having said that, it's such a large roster that I can understand why he'd be hesitant to go there. Every new signing has the potential to push someone else off Dynamite, and I don't think there's anyone I'd be willing to sacrifice for Adam Cole at this point. 

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Outside of the McAfee feud (which was more about Pat than Cole), I struggle to remember a feud that I've really enjoyed involving Cole. Even the Undisputed Era stuff never really grabbed me. Unfortunately, i think Cole is one of those guys (Similar to Maverick) who wont be able to fully overcome his size.

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I’d only seen one match of his prior to him showing up in NXT, an ROH match against Kevin Owens which I can’t remember w a whole lot about right now.

The moment he showed up at that Takeover on Summerslam weekend and looked to be heading for a feud with McIntyre, I just turned to my mate and said “really? You’re going to have Drew selling for that m——t*? Fuck that” and he’s done very little to win me over since. 
The thigh-slapping that a blind man in Row Z can see, the bunny-hop that he does every time he hits the Destroyer- a move which he’s never fucking won with.

He wouldn’t last 5 minutes on the main roster once Vince got a proper look at him.

* I admit I did say a word which isn’t considered acceptable anymore

Edited by WyattSheepMask
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1 hour ago, Supremo said:

I’ve never seen Adam Cole wrestle outside of NXT. Was he better before HBK agented his matches? Or was he always doing the forty eight minute kick out fests? 

He was always that. It's the main reason (aside from finding him boring) that I don't want him in AEW - there's no sense that he's been held back, or will he reinvent himself there, because NXT Adam Cole is exactly the same now as he was when he debuted, which is exactly the same as ROH Adam Cole, which was exactly the same as PWG Adam Cole...

I think if he was AEW-bound, surely he'd have just signed with them when he had the opportunity? Someone who wants to jump ship to another promotion isn't going to agree to a handshake deal to stay with their current employer until they can sort things out - to me, that's someone who wants to stay with WWE, and has probably been given assurances of certain perks/opportunities when he eventually re-signs. 

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6 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

 

I think if he was AEW-bound, surely he'd have just signed with them when he had the opportunity? Someone who wants to jump ship to another promotion isn't going to agree to a handshake deal to stay with their current employer until they can sort things out - to me, that's someone who wants to stay with WWE, and has probably been given assurances of certain perks/opportunities when he eventually re-signs. 

Well let’s hope that AEW aren’t running the Mall of America anytime soon

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Probably quite telling about the lack of impact NXT has on the general wrestling consciousness these days that this hasn’t even come up yet, but WON reckons apparently Triple H’s reign of vanilla midgets is over:

The wording is “no more midgets, no one starting in their 30s and people who can be box office attractions and main characters”.

Twitter stans are now in direct conflict with each other, divided over whether Gargano and Ciampa was the pinnacle of NXT, or was the thing that turned everybody off. I’ve even seen one person unironically state that the feud was the best one since the Attitude era.

To me, this can only be a good thing. They quite clearly lost at trying to do what AEW did but worse, so I think they’re better served treating it like a developmental (which allegedly it was always supposed to be anyway) and going back to what works for them.

Of course, I don’t have any more faith in the main WWE bookers than in Shawn Michaels, Triple H and the super geek squad, but at least by trying something different it will give us a different outcome. More Pat McAfees and less Tommaso Ciampas, thanks.

Edited by Daaaaaad!
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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.

Imagine being Gargano and Ciampa right now though. Sitting backstage in their HBK cosplay, knowing the writing is on the wall.

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Can only speak for myself, but I was an ardent NXT fan from the start and can say with certainty that it was the pushes of Gargano, Ciampa and all the little fellas in the Undisputed Era that turned me off the show completely. Over the past three years or so I went from never missing a show to no longer watching it at all. There have been a few other factors in that, namely doubling the length of the show and changing when it appears on the Network, but if the age of the vanilla midget is over I will be jumping for joy.

 

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1 minute ago, Arch Stanton said:

Can only speak for myself, but I was an ardent NXT fan from the start and can say with certainty that it was the pushes of Gargano, Ciampa and all the little fellas in the Undisputed Era that turned me off the show completely. Over the past three years or so I went from never missing a show to no longer watching it at all. There have been a few other factors in that, namely doubling the length of the show and changing when it appears on the Network, but if the age of the vanilla midget is over I will be jumping for joy.

 

Completely agree. It was long before the Wednesday night war. That might have been the point Vince lost faith in it as a third brand but it lost it's appeal as either a third brand or a development brand long before that and this can only be a good thing for WWE, even if it does put off all those people who think it's somehow separate.

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10 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

Can only speak for myself, but I was an ardent NXT fan from the start and can say with certainty that it was the pushes of Gargano, Ciampa and all the little fellas in the Undisputed Era that turned me off the show completely. Over the past three years or so I went from never missing a show to no longer watching it at all. There have been a few other factors in that, namely doubling the length of the show and changing when it appears on the Network, but if the age of the vanilla midget is over I will be jumping for joy.

 

Those other factors were the main ones for me. Doubling the length of the show, then changing when it was available to watch over here, did it for me. The stagnating of the roster was the thing that meant I didn’t bother going back - I remember the exact moment I realised it wasn’t for me anymore, and it was Ciampa against Austin Theory some time in early 2020. I’ve only watched the odd Takeover since. 

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For years, when NXT was actually good and Triple H would be asked about eventually running the whole company, he’d talk about how Raw and Smackdown were a completely different thing and running a two or three hour weekly show on national TV required a completely different approach to what they were doing with NXT on the Network. For the longest time I thought he was just toeing the company line and he knew that the moment Vince died he could start running Raw and Smackdown exactly like he did NXT; fun, simple, logical storylines leading to matches guaranteed to deliver between super workers.

Then NXT got two hours on national TV and it turned out Triple H actually believed all this shit, started running NXT in the same shitty way Raw and Smackdown is ran, and killed his own brand in the process. Hilarious. Turns out Trips wasn’t the saviour of wrestling after all. He was just as indoctrinated and clueless as the rest of them. He just got away with it for years by relying on a constant supply of hot talent from the independents. When that well dried up and the best he could get was LA Knight and Karrion Kross it completely exposed them. Their ability to make stars from scratch or mould guys who aren’t already at the top of their game is no different than what we see on Mondays and Fridays. Useless.

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