The Official WWE / NXT Discussion Thread *May Contain Spoilers*

[Jaysin]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="MightyDavidson" data-cite="MightyDavidson" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="25169" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>Who's Tyson Fury?</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> The lineal heavyweight boxing champion. He’s considered the best heavyweight boxer around right now.</p>

[MightyDavidson]

<blockquote data-ipsquote="" class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-username="Jaysin" data-cite="Jaysin" data-ipsquote-contentapp="forums" data-ipsquote-contenttype="forums" data-ipsquote-contentid="25169" data-ipsquote-contentclass="forums_Topic"><div>The lineal heavyweight boxing champion. He’s considered the best heavyweight boxer around right now.</div></blockquote><p> </p><p> Thank you.</p>

[milamber]

- Rush vs Gulak was good. The title change was a nice surprise. Much better than doing it on a PPV pre-show.

- Rhea's gonna kill you! Beast finisher.

- Strong vs Swerve was great.

- Dream's non-PG dunking on Roddy from the entrance balcony and Ciampa punching out Garza were funny.

- Dakota vs Bianca was good. Bianca vs Rhea sounds like a fun match-up.

- KUSHIDA vs WALTER was Takeover quality.

[Mootinie]

The last TakeOver was in Canada and did a live attendance of 13,735. How can you consider NXT anything but a resounding success?

[MightyDavidson]

Hearing about Tyson Fury working with the WWE makes me wonder: who does the jobbing for pointless celebrity cameos now that Big Show is retired?

[milamber]

<p>NXT ratings:</p><p> </p><p>

Sept. 18 (one hour on USA): 1.179 million</p><p>

Sept. 25 (one hour on USA): 1.006 million</p><p>

Oct. 2: 891,000</p><p>

Oct. 9: 790,000</p>

[Jaysin]

Those “war room” segments were so bad. Who thought those were a good idea?

 

The brands have barely changed.

[Makhai]

Those “war room” segments were so bad. Who thought those were a good idea?

 

The brands have barely changed.

 

Agreed. The whole show was bad. The only major newsworthy thing was that they split Cross and Bliss, after turning them babyface and screwing Cross out of her payoff and Strowman is moving to Smackdown, everything else is the same.

 

The Corbin-"Shorty G" match was peak WWE, and Let's pour one out for the Hugster. #HugLife4Life. A potential generational babyface ruined, and finally put out to pasture. She's got a speed metal theme now and will probably job the belt back to Charlotte back and forth for the next 10 weeks or so.

[Jaysin]

They didn’t split Alexa and Nikki. Both went to Raw

[Makhai]

They didn’t split Alexa and Nikki. Both went to Raw

 

Wait what? Why draft them as singles then?

[Jaysin]

Wait what? Why draft them as singles then?

 

Because the company is ran by idiots

[milamber]

Well that sucked. Reading the results (which they spoiled on the website LOL) would have been just as interesting and way less time consuming.

 

The only part worth watching:

 

[TLCJR4LIFE]

Nothing smarks love more than an arbitrary heel turn.

 

I quite liked the heel Bayley as a codependent best friend complicit with the manipulative Sasha Banks.

 

But then again, that’s far too subtle and layered for WWE and probably WWE fans to get.

 

No, we need yet another character throwing away years of character development and consistency for a quick heel run inspired by everyone’s teenaged daughters rebellious years.

 

They did the same exact thing with Emma right before she was released.

 

 

So great, Bayley legitimately lost her one standout feature she has, and is now just a below average looking heel with an “attitude”.

 

Good luck with that.

[TLCJR4LIFE]

NXT may or may not be a success as its own separate brand, that remains to be seen and it's too soon to judge....but I would say it hasn't been a success as a developmental brand in recent years. It used to be actually good at that (back when it was actually doing work in getting people like Tye Dilinger and Bo Dallas over and not just dropping established stars from ROH/Evolve/Japan who already have an established fanbase from the start), but now it focuses too much on showcasing stars who have already proven their skills elsewhere and not really doing much with actual fresh talents who had their start from their much-touted Performance Centre. There's literally 1 home-grown star in NXT: Velveteen Dream. The Performance Centre only provides bunches of faceless jobbers that cycle in and out.

 

 

 

Exactly.

 

But post this on r/squaredcircle and you will get nuked into orbit.

 

I don’t see how WWE brass finds NXT acceptable for what it is at all. Cole will probably be a big deal in the WWE, but honestly I had heard about Adam Cole literally a half dozen years ago, he is nothing new, he was an inevitability.

 

Riddle and Dream are the only interesting guys you could consider young fresh talent, just because Riddle has only been doing this for a few years.

 

And honestly again, I don’t really know what HHH or any of the NXT fans expect WWE to do with most of these guys.

 

Bobby Fish is very old, pushing 40. Roderick Strong is an old vanilla midget.

O’Reilly is a vanilla midget but at least somewhat young.

Johnny Gargano, again, middle aged vanilla midget.

 

Ciampa, glorified vanilla midget who’s middle aged and broken down with multiple severe injuries.

 

The hell has WWE historically been able to do with generic CAW looking dudes under 5’11 that have no gimmicks or microphone skills?

 

Nothing.

 

 

Cole has charisma and can at least play a character so he’ll likely be a factor, he’s also a spring chicken compared to most of NXT despite being like 30 and around Indy circles forever.

 

 

I don’t think the smark fan will ever accept the reality around NXT when Vince ultimately gets rid of it or overhauls it. If I’m willing to bet, I bet Vince gave the NXT guys a chance to beat AEW as a third brand and if they dont(and they aren’t going to even come close) he’s going to take it over is my guess.

[Makhai]

Nothing smarks love more than an arbitrary heel turn.

 

I quite liked the heel Bayley as a codependent best friend complicit with the manipulative Sasha Banks.

 

But then again, that’s far too subtle and layered for WWE and probably WWE fans to get.

 

No, we need yet another character throwing away years of character development and consistency for a quick heel run inspired by everyone’s teenaged daughters rebellious years.

 

They did the same exact thing with Emma right before she was released.

 

 

So great, Bayley legitimately lost her one standout feature she has, and is now just a below average looking heel with an “attitude”.

 

Good luck with that.

 

I am so ready for her to come out in facepaint and read poems about her burning pain and the endless darkness of her soul.

[TLCJR4LIFE]

I'd put that on McMahon too. The established stars from the indies were supposed to be in NXT en route to heading to the main roster, with the call ups making more room in developmental for other people. Instead Vince keeps hiring the established guys and never calling them up, while continuing to hire more and more established guys from the indies. Thus you end up with shows without any room for the performance center guys.

 

 

I highly doubt Vince deals with most of these NXT signings.

 

That being said, the glut in indie talent is mostly intentional, as they are intentionally trying to tie up all of the talented and known indie talent to their brand so that competitors can’t use them.

[TLCJR4LIFE]

I am so ready for her to come out in facepaint and read poems about her burning pain and the endless darkness of her soul.

 

 

It’s legitimatley so corny it hurts, it blows my mind that wrestling Twitter ate it up but then again as stated smarks have never seen a heel then they didn’t love.

 

 

She’s so much edgier now! Oh, you mean she’s a generic whiny heel, just like every other heel woman on the roster?

 

With Emma the history went from her having this super dorky gimmick with a dance to wearing sunglasses and frowning like she was a huge badass. No one bought it then, no one bought it when Brodus Clay did it wither, and no one bought it when they put crappy facepaint on Mojo and his cracked mirror persona.

 

Why, because it all comes off so phony and cheesy. The whole “broken babyface gets a meanstreak” motif is so played out and tired and never worked in the first place.

 

 

Heel turns require storytelling, charisma and they require not insulting the viewer with some dumb stuff. “Waaaah I lost a title match, I’m going to dye my hair and scowl now!”

 

 

If you say so.

 

 

 

The only time I’ve seen that sort of angle work was Broken Matt, but he was willing to take that places it honestly had never gone before in wrestling history and he was willing to take a chance on being immortalized in a WrestleCrap tier angle. At first, Broken Matt was seen as kind of a joke, then it became sort of must watch in a train wreck sort of way until it became legitimatley over. But again, that was the opposite of generic, wrestling really hadn’t seen a character like that before.

[Makhai]

Exactly.

 

But post this on r/squaredcircle and you will get nuked into orbit.

 

I don’t see how WWE brass finds NXT acceptable for what it is at all. Cole will probably be a big deal in the WWE, but honestly I had heard about Adam Cole literally a half dozen years ago, he is nothing new, he was an inevitability.

 

Riddle and Dream are the only interesting guys you could consider young fresh talent, just because Riddle has only been doing this for a few years.

 

And honestly again, I don’t really know what HHH or any of the NXT fans expect WWE to do with most of these guys.

 

Bobby Fish is very old, pushing 40. Roderick Strong is an old vanilla midget.

O’Reilly is a vanilla midget but at least somewhat young.

Johnny Gargano, again, middle aged vanilla midget.

 

Ciampa, glorified vanilla midget who’s middle aged and broken down with multiple severe injuries.

 

The hell has WWE historically been able to do with generic CAW looking dudes under 5’11 that have no gimmicks or microphone skills?

 

Nothing.

 

 

Cole has charisma and can at least play a character so he’ll likely be a factor, he’s also a spring chicken compared to most of NXT despite being like 30 and around Indy circles forever.

 

 

I don’t think the smark fan will ever accept the reality around NXT when Vince ultimately gets rid of it or overhauls it. If I’m willing to bet, I bet Vince gave the NXT guys a chance to beat AEW as a third brand and if they dont(and they aren’t going to even come close) he’s going to take it over is my guess.

 

NXT hasn't been a developmental brand in about a year. It's the Smark brand , Vince discards people into NXT and hordes talent to undermine AEW. The whole point of NXT right now is to counterprogram AEW. You can just watch that show and see that they're formatting around AEW's best audience slots, and are going 15mins over every week to juice their quarters. It's pathetic.

 

But it's not a developmental brand anymore. Shayna, Cole, Gargano those people would have gone up by now. You don't send down Breezeango and Fergal if it's a developmental brand. NXT is designed to try and hurt AEW. Unless AEW folds or becomes a joke, I think none of those people are going up in the next 5 years.

[BHK1978]

Exactly.

 

But post this on r/squaredcircle and you will get nuked into orbit.

 

I don’t see how WWE brass finds NXT acceptable for what it is at all. Cole will probably be a big deal in the WWE, but honestly I had heard about Adam Cole literally a half dozen years ago, he is nothing new, he was an inevitability.

 

Riddle and Dream are the only interesting guys you could consider young fresh talent, just because Riddle has only been doing this for a few years.

 

And honestly again, I don’t really know what HHH or any of the NXT fans expect WWE to do with most of these guys.

 

Bobby Fish is very old, pushing 40. Roderick Strong is an old vanilla midget.

O’Reilly is a vanilla midget but at least somewhat young.

Johnny Gargano, again, middle aged vanilla midget.

 

Ciampa, glorified vanilla midget who’s middle aged and broken down with multiple severe injuries.

 

The hell has WWE historically been able to do with generic CAW looking dudes under 5’11 that have no gimmicks or microphone skills?

 

Nothing.

 

 

Cole has charisma and can at least play a character so he’ll likely be a factor, he’s also a spring chicken compared to most of NXT despite being like 30 and around Indy circles forever.

 

 

I don’t think the smark fan will ever accept the reality around NXT when Vince ultimately gets rid of it or overhauls it. If I’m willing to bet, I bet Vince gave the NXT guys a chance to beat AEW as a third brand and if they dont(and they aren’t going to even come close) he’s going to take it over is my guess.

 

If there was a like button this post would be getting it.

 

I never could wrap my head around the WWE signing Mr. ROH Roderick Strong. Yes he has good matches but in the modern day WWE if you have no personality you are going to go too far. He would benefit either having a good talking manager or a pretty arm candy valet. But for some reason Vince has soured on managers and valets. Which is a shame because The Three Wise Men of the East did great work for his father and the generation of managers that came directly after (Bobby the Brain, Jimmy Hart, etc.) were fantastic as well.

 

Kyle O’Reilly was another head scratcher for me. One would not think it is possible but Kyle even has less of a personality than Roderick.

[Makhai]

It’s legitimatley so corny it hurts, it blows my mind that wrestling Twitter ate it up but then again as stated smarks have never seen a heel then they didn’t love.

 

 

She’s so much edgier now! Oh, you mean she’s a generic whiny heel, just like every other heel woman on the roster?

 

With Emma the history went from her having this super dorky gimmick with a dance to wearing sunglasses and frowning like she was a huge badass. No one bought it then, no one bought it when Brodus Clay did it wither, and no one bought it when they put crappy facepaint on Mojo and his cracked mirror persona.

 

Why, because it all comes off so phony and cheesy. The whole “broken babyface gets a meanstreak” motif is so played out and tired and never worked in the first place.

 

 

Heel turns require storytelling, charisma and they require not insulting the viewer with some dumb stuff. “Waaaah I lost a title match, I’m going to dye my hair and scowl now!”

 

 

If you say so.

 

 

 

The only time I’ve seen that sort of angle work was Broken Matt, but he was willing to take that places it honestly had never gone before in wrestling history and he was willing to take a chance on being immortalized in a WrestleCrap tier angle. At first, Broken Matt was seen as kind of a joke, then it became sort of must watch in a train wreck sort of way until it became legitimatley over. But again, that was the opposite of generic, wrestling really hadn’t seen a character like that before.

 

It's actually really extra sad because her NXT character got over by refusing to do what Sasha did. That feud worked because Sasha found success by giving up on what she believed in to become a Materialistic hussy with bling and Escalade hunks. And Bayley came up short again and again, until at the last chance saloon she got it done, her way. It was the best babyface storyline WWE has ever produced and still my favorite match in the companies history. Such a shame that the company is booked by a 73-year old steroidal, lune.

[TLCJR4LIFE]

It's actually really extra sad because her NXT character got over by refusing to do what Sasha did. That feud worked because Sasha found success by giving up on what she believed in to become a Materialistic hussy with bling and Escalade hunks. And Bayley came up short again and again, until at the last chance saloon she got it done, her way. It was the best babyface storyline WWE has ever produced and still my favorite match in the companies history. Such a shame that the company is booked by a 73-year old steroidal, lune.

 

 

 

 

Agreed.

 

Even worse that again years of the character building were thrown out, the fact that WWE failed to see the big picture yet again is just special.

 

See you could have built to a huge Sasha vs Bayley blow-off, knowing good and well these two have excellent chemistry in the ring together. You have Sasha the manipulator totally diva it up while complicit heel Bayley is pushed to the very limits of her personal ethical code out of loyalty to Sasha, Sasha eventually gets tired of Bayley for being soft and turns on her, ending a 6+ month run of Bayley as a soft heel.

 

Then boom, Wrestlemania quality blowoff feud. See how easy that is?

 

Meanwhile Bayley doesn’t lose the only interesting thing about her character and can easily switch back to her babyface persona without it being total BS.

 

 

 

Again, I’m almost positive in a year or so Bayley will revert her character and just be like “Haha guys she was just going through a phase shes back to normal now”

 

This is why WWE is seen as a joke and has trouble losing its stigma as a kids show, because of fan slapping continuity issues like this

[Mootinie]

NXT has gone from a show on the Network that probably drew something like 500,000 viewers at best, to a show on a major television network that now draws 750,000+. It makes them $30 million a year guaranteed just by being on television. Not to mention the 10,000+ fans they do at the gate for the TakeOver specials, essentially doubling the take they were doing at the gate for PPV's.

 

Yes, they sign talent that doesn't have the rosiest future on the main roster. Some are signed to improve NXT as the tertiary brand, as the wrestling-heavy alternative to the main roster. Like Roderick Strong. I'd sign him in a heartbeat if I ran a wrestling promotion; he's rock solid, reliable and very good on his day. He's not gonna cut a terrific promo but he's serviceable enough to create an interesting programme, as he has done with Velveteen Dream and Pete Dunne recently.

 

I'm sure WWE are delighted with NXT. To be at this point, when, five years ago, it was just a tiny operation at Full Sail University is remarkable if we're being honest.

 

With regards Bayley, I like her heel turn because she's not super over as a face. She's the first ever women's Triple Crown Champion and the first ever women's Grand Slam Champion. She has a title win at WrestleMania under her belt too, a big deal because "the stars" always win at Mania. This all should suggest that she's a major player and a superstar, but I don't feel she is and I don't think she was ever going to be.

[CQI13]

<p>Anyone been having issues with the live shows on the Network since they revamped the app? I am able to play everything with no issues...except the PPVs which I can get to start but inevitably gives me "Something went wrong" about an hour in. I have little desire to watch something the next day.</p><p> </p><p>

I am able to watch on my phone (but not my TV) and I don't plan on watching a 4 hour (or 7 hour WM) show on a small screen.</p>

[Jaysin]

Gargano is 32. He’s still got 10 years before he’s middle aged

[milamber]