Posted in: Movies, Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: NXT, wwe

Ten Things We Need To See From NXT In 2017

NXT: WWE's version of Ring Of Honor, only without Jim Cornette yelling at people, and everyone's names are changed for copyright and branding reasons. There's a lot we could write about NXT, both in the positive and negative after watching the brand radically change over the past three years. But right now, more than ever before, the brand seems to be in a state of flux and feels like it's become inferior again after WWE have raided their talent pool the same way WWE raided everyone else's talent pool to build it. So because we're fans, and because lists do well everywhere else you go, here are ten things we'd like to see from NXT this year.

A Refreshed Women's Division

Three things are going to happen this year for sure: Auska is going to leave for Raw, Ember Moon will become NXT Women's Champion, and the WWE Network will hold a women's tournament. After those three elements, tell me something else about the NXT Women's Division. …Go ahead, we'll wait… If the only thing you came up with is the friendship between Peyton Royce and Billie Kay, you just proved our point. There's no fire in the division anymore, or at least not the kind we were seeing just two years ago when the Four Horsewomen were burning down the building every week. The women's tournament will probably give the company some extra names to throw into NXT, but what they sorely need is fresh blood that can go beyond ten minutes, and that's a small pool of women at the moment. It would also help to have more compelling stories behind those who come in, and not just the usual "I hate you because you're different" like we're seeing between Nikki Cross and Ruby Riot. There's so much more that can be done here and they have some great talent to pull it off, but the division needs new faces and better stories.

Sanity Holding All The Gold

Love them or hate them, Sanity is sticking around for a while. And if they're going to be molded into a badass stable, they need to be treated like one. The Four Horsemen, DX, The Dangerous Alliance, The nWo, The Shield, Evolution—all of these teams and stables have one thing in common: Most or all of them all held gold at the same time. If WWE wants this group to come off as a truly dominant force, they need to drop the "conversion" gimmick that buried the Wyatt Family and accept the reality that they are a four-person unit that works fine as it is. Once that's done, they need to spend at least three NXT Takeover events winning all the gold for themselves. There's no better way to put it: If you want them to look dominant, they need to BE dominant.

Adding A New Secondary Title For The Men

Younger fans may only know the WCW Television Championship as a prop in the 2K games, but at one point this was a somewhat respected championship in the other company. It was designed with the purpose of getting lower-card talent over with fans by putting them on TV every week to defend the title at least once every seven days and on all PPV events. Hence the name, Television Championship. NXT is not going to create an IC-like title, but they can create a secondary belt any time they want to help drive storylines over a championship, while simultaneously getting that champion over as a workhorse, and giving fans the unpredictable with the idea that the title could change hands on any show. It wouldn't take a lot to create the NXT Network Championship, and it would be a hell of a workout for whoever became champion having to defend it in two to three matches per taping. But something needs to infuse the lower end of the card, and a new belt would do the trick.

Utilize More Of The Unseen Talent

Some people are just not ready for prime-time, we get that. But until you actually get on camera and show some personality, no one truly knows what you got. I realize there's an entire "how to cut a promo" program at the Performance Center, but it would be nice to see it put to better use. I know a lot of the TNA bits that happen backstage look awful and rehearsed, but that's TNA and this is the WWE. They occasionally have a knack for getting people over as throwaway characters or bit players. Maybe it's time to do more storytelling at the gym before coming to Full Sail, and you can do so by incorporating talent on the rise.

Expand Stories Into The Background

Remember what I just said about doing stories at the gym? Yeah! Why the hell isn't WWE utilizing that facility more to build up storylines? In fact, you got an entire college campus to play on, why do we only ever see the NXT interview area and William Regal's office? Anyone who has even been to an NXT taping can attest that the building is NOT as large as a random arena that WWE pulls into every week, and those two sets prove it. Where is everyone stretching and getting changed before popping out on stage? It would be nice to see them utilize the space around them, even if it would be a watered down version of WWE's talent walking around everywhere backstage and going into offices. Far better than than the same two spots every week.

Bring In More UK Competitors

We held a UK tournament and crowned a new champion. Great! What have we done with that champion on camera since? Jack squat! In fact, Jack Gallagher has gotten more camera time on 205 Live than Tyler Bate has on all TV combined, which is just sad. If you're going to have a UK Champion, you need to start having a lot more UK wrestling, which means having more of their stars on TV and more live shows across the pond. NXT is the perfect outlet for this, and it breaks up the monotony of having some guy cut a promo on one recording about a show he's going to have next week, only to film his reaction for the third week of tapings. Put all that in one show, give the extra time to UK performers doing what they do best. And it isn't like they don't have the talent pool to pull it off and give the fans reasons to be invested. We need the UK additions much more than we need random promos.

More One-Off Appearances On TV

Remember how we were all raving about that Cesaro vs. Sami Zayn match a few years ago? Yeah, that was awesome. But time flies when your being nostalgic and guess what we don't see much of these days? I'm not asking for an everyday appearance by Rusev or Dean Ambrose, but getting someone from the main roster to come in and put someone over (even in a losing effort) can do the rising talent some good as a performer, and put some stock in the fans eyes for them as being a top performer who needs to be on Raw or Smackdown. CM Punk once said that he wanted to have a Wrestlemania main event match (as in, the last match of the night) to show he could hang with the main event players and gain the experience of fighting in that main event. The same can be said for NXT wrestlers. How do they know they're ready to go at that level unless someone from the main roster pops by, says hello, knocks the current people there and then gets challenged by one of them to show they're worth it? And incidentally, that could work both ways. It sure helped Kevin Owens when he started kicking John Cena around like hot garbage in 2015.

Better Storytelling For The Undercard

I like No Way Jose as a person and a character, but I could not give a shit about whatever storyline he is currently in, because the mid and under-card talent are in creative hell. One of the biggest issues NXT has going for it is that unless you're fighting for a title, your purpose for fighting other people is boiled down to simple creative differences and not much else. Think about No Way Jose for a second: Last year he had one major feud that was memorable, and that was with Austin Aries. And it all started because Aries lost a match and Jose was trying to cheer him up, which Aries didn't take too kindly to. That could have just resulted in a shove to make Aries a fine heel to start and then work our way up, but instead, we got a full beatdown and an escalated rivalry just to make it to the next Takeover. That's a story that could have been told out over months and given both men depth, but was rushed over the simple notion that Aries hates dancing and losing. That's just one example with one wrestler. The under-card needs better writing, period.

Hideo Itami: NXT Champion

Aside from Sanity, this is the only real title change I'm adding to the list, and I'm doing it because at this point it's a necessity. Hideo Itami (better known everywhere else as Kenta Kobayashi) had two major things going against him over the past two years: he was injury prone, and WWE nabbed Shinsuke Nakamura. The injuries kept him off the card for 19 of the past 24 months, having him lose sight in the fan's eyes. Meanwhile, the company poached one of the most charismatic NJPW stars they could have to join the same roster, and by default, got a better Japanese wrestler the fans connected to quickly. If it weren't for the injuries, Itami would be where Nakamura is now, though we're not sure what kind of success he'd have, or whether Nakamura would have even been sought out, but that's a discussion for another day.

Itami needs to get back on track and get to where he needs to be, and that's in the main event picture on NXT. Sure, you can make a case for others on the roster, but the one guy who needs a championship win this year is Itami. If he doesn't get one, or if he isn't even in the main event picture going up against Bobby Roode for a couple Takeover events, then you might as well get ready to see him head back to Japan. I can't image WWE wanting to boost him to the main roster on either show without making him a bigger name here first, and I can't image Itami wanting to sit around in the mid-card when he could be a bigger star at home. He needs to become NXT champion this year.

Acknowledge NXT For What It Actually Is

So here's the thing… Wrestling fans in the know (or Smarks, if you prefer) know what NXT is. The brand is used to develop new talent by making them wrestle WWE's style (and yes, there is a style, which they consider to be safer). It's used to rebrand already established talent so WWE own the copyrights to their new name. (So if Kevin Steen ever leaves, he can't make money off the name Kevin Ownes.) It's used to get fans aclimated to the old territory days while still calling it a developmental system. It's used to condition the fans to someone new rather than dumping them on TV to fail immediately, and a few more minor things that happen behind the curtain to assure a better product from the company. It's WWE's way of hitting seven birds with one folding chair (across the back).

Pretending that it's some special place that talent seek out is a total lie that they sell on a weekly basis. If your goal as a wrestler is to make it to the WWE, we're pretty sure NXT is not a required pitstop. AJ Styles proved that, and we're sure if Kenny Omega signed back in January, he would have been the same. Hearing established stars like Bobby Roode say things like "NXT is the only place I knew where I could get real competition" is just a lie and it makes it harder for us to get invested in people when their own character doesn't sound convinced. WWE needs to start acknowledging NXT for what it really is in the company: a controlled stepping stone. Some people could take it to hearts and say "I'm here to prove I deserve to be on Raw," or take it as a blemish on their career and say "I have to prove to the people in charge I'm better than all these other wannabe's in the back." That's better storytelling than trying to convince me that people with over ten years experience under their belts in PWG, ROH, NJPW, TNA and even the NWA had only one goal in mind, and it wasn't to get on main WWE programming. Just admit to the public on camera what it is and move on so the entire roster doesn't sound like a bunch of missguided fools who didn't realize there was a level above NXT.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!