Build up Corbin for another “Monster Heel Kills Everyone Until Cena Then Falls To Comedy Act” run? Seems there is an opening.
God I hope not.
Look, I love NXT as much as the next guy, but the constant clamor to have them pushed would leave 80% of the NXT roster in WWE and leave NXT with NOTHING. Yeah you can say how “ready” Finn and Joe are, but then once they leave, and Crews, and Sami, and Hiteo (which is what everyone wants) then you’ll be bitching on how bad NXT is because everyone sucks.
Of course everyone sucks, everyone who was good and making it good are now gone. There should be ZERO call ups for the next 6 months, then maybe take one of em.
The entire purpose of NXT is to prepare wrestlers to appear on WWE. If they say “You can work as hard as you want, but we’re only taking one of you every six months”, it defeats the purpose.
But they also need to prepare.
It defeats just as much of a purpose to put them IN NXT for three months and then call them up
It could be argued that Samoa Joe has been preparing for WWE’s main roster for 15 years. (For that matter, he actually wrestled in WWF developmental in 2000 and feuded with John Cena at the time.)
As has KO, as has Finn etc.
But NXT is as huge as it is because of the stars in it and while it can be argued that these guys didn’t even need to be in NXT at all, but fans I see (and not necessarily ya’ll here) will praise the Indy guys for how awesome their matches are, and at the same time say how godawful Baron Corbin and Solomon Crowe are and why are they even here etc.
My reasoning is that they are in developmental and need time to work on the craft, especially on TV, and wrestling fans are a fickle group and crazy shortsighted. I am hesitant to have a massive callup of talent because once that happens they are left with people who are (rightfully) not very good these smarks are going to say how terrible NXT is, and how great it used to be, and “we miss wrestlers XYZ”. But the reason it’s like this is because you wanted it in the first place.
Just like a young basketball team or a wide receiving group who needs a veteran presence around I think that you need to have people who don’t “deserve” to be in NXT so that the young guns (Baron, Bull, Bayley, hell…even Eva) can learn how to wrestle.
Well, there’s two sides here.
If they’re only making $30-50k in NXT and they want/need/deserve more, then hell yeah, they’re going to need to be called up quicker if WWE wants to keep them. If they can make more as an Indy star, then there’d be no reason to remain stuck in NXT.
OTOH: If NXT can sell 5k-15k of tickets and a ton of merch doing shows, and use that to pay these guys real money, then by all means, stay with NXT. If Finn Balor can make $200+k a year working NXT, it would be better for him and for WWE for him to remain as one of the top guys in NXT rather than being lost in the shuffle (especially as a smaller guy - he’s 5’11", 190) on the main roster, stuck jobbing to bigger guys.
HHH has said he considers a separate (and indirectly competing) brand from WWE. I’m pretty sure WWE wants to be able to boast of developing a star from the ground up all by themselves, and until recently were reluctant to sign up those who worked for competing feds. That showed they couldn’t take full credit for ppl like KO and Samoa Joe when they all the sudden became popular. Merchandising sales have since changed their minds.
So, maybe Finn will stay in NXT for a few years, enjoying the cut from demon shirt sales, which probably puts him in in the 6-figure bracket, maybe over what the midcarders make. If the main roster pays him enough, maybe he’ll change his mind and get used to looking at the lights in prime time.
I’m going to make a bold prediction for the main event of Night of Champions, based on how things are being booked right now;
[SPOILER] Sting is going to turn heel and side with the Authority.
It’ll be part of a double turn, actually. Rollins is going to get the upper hand and look to be on the verge of a clean victory when a ref bump happens. Triple H will come out, jump in the ring, and Pedigree Seth. He’ll then lay him out flat on his back, slide out of the ring, and yell at Sting to take the pin. Just as the referee comes to, Sting goes for the pin (or puts Seth in the scorpion deathlock and taps him out, adding insult to injury) and Trips hands him the belt and celebrates with him in the ring.
It’s pretty clear that, just like with Orton before him, Trips has gotten tired of the prima donna BS Seth has been pulling after months of being told how great he is. We saw at ‘Mania that Sting earned Trips’ respect, and thus far he hasn’t done anything to stop Sting from interfering in Seth’s matches or destroying his property. Sting, meanwhile, wants to do the one thing he’s never achieved in his career - become WWE champion (and, AFAIK, the only person to have been world champion in WWE, WCW, and TNA)- and I have a feeling he’ll be willing to embrace the dark side in order to achieve it. [/SPOILER]
Sting was also NWA champion 2x.
The only way I can see Sting winning is if Shaemus is going to come cash in and take it from him. Then the next night, Cena takes it from Shaemus or something stupid., and then we have a Cena-Sting Mutual respect feud as Cena offers a shot to Sting because of how he lost it.
And they better not do anything like that. We don’t need “Sting was WWE Champ for 8 seconds!”, or it ending back on Cena in such a clusterfuck.
In other news, it’s been announced that Kana, the female Japanese wrestler who was shown in the crowd at Takeover Brooklyn, has officially signed with WWE.
She’s been one of the top female wrestlers in Japan for much of the last decade, and in the US she’s worked both in Chikara and in Shimmer, and is said to be known for working a strong style based on MMA throws and holds. It’ll probably be a few months or so before she makes her TV debut in NXT, but the buzz is very positive at this time.
Let’s hope that by the time she makes it to the main roster, the people responsible for booking womens’ wrestling are no longer in the mindset that all women are one-dimensional alpha bitches who hate each other over petty nonsense and that the one with the biggest tits is the one who should be over.
Did y’all catch Xavier Woods playing the Final Fantasy Victory Fanfare on his trombone in that E&C/Dudleyz/New Day segment on RAW? HILARIOUS.
Q: What is Summer Rae’s most common sleeping position?
A: Around
Too bad Lana got a wrist booboo. I was curious to see how low they’d go with the Zig-Rusev-Lana-Summer Rae obnoxiousness. Is it wrong of me to want to see creepy and uncomfortable domestic violence?
Here is my storyline prediction. I don’t think Sting will turn to the Dark Side. I’m thinking Sheamus will wind up being the stooge. He’ll bring out the suitcase after Seth pedigrees Sting, then Brogue Kick Seth out of the ring, then attempt to pin Sting. Sting will then reverse it and pin Sheamus and win the belt. Seth would then have a legitimate reason to get a rematch and win the belt back the next PPV. Sting will have won the WWE title and now has that cred to add to his career accomplishments. HE’S A WORLD CHAMPION IN THREE FEDERATIONS (if you include TNA) MAGGLE!
So, looks like RKOrton will team with Ambrose and Reigns vs the Wascawwy Wyatts. Maybe they’ll milk how he got beat up so badly, A & R can’t get a partner because they’re too skeered.
Still leaves the possibility of an NXT callup (Baron, SJ, whomever) or RKOrtion makes a triumphant return.
Right now I don’t want to see any more callups from NXT until they clear out some of the chaff on the main roster and get some better booking.
I absolutely DO NOT want to see them calling up people like Baron Corbin before he gets another six months or so of experience. Hell, for that matter I don’t want to see them call up Bayley given the SHIT ‘factions’ booking they’re forcing on the women.
As long as Vince and Kevin Dunn continue to have oversight of the main roster, it doesn’t matter who the MR Divas’ road agent is. I do hope that Kana kicks Eva Marie’s head into the fifth row at Full Sail, though.
That trombone is the greatest thing to happen to wrestling since wrestling happened, and I say that as a fairly hardcore workrate mark.
Until about two weeks from now when y’all are tired of it.
But it was great as a one-off.
In other news, another NXT Diva has been caught dropping the N-bomb on Twitter.
WWE really needs to start screening their talents’ social media history before hiring them.
At this point, you should be intelligent enough to not do that shit.
If you did it in the past and are just signing on with WWE or any company where you are performing in public, clean that shit up **before **you sign the contract.
I have zero sympathy or support for these idiots. Ruined by their own hands.