Over the last few years that’s stopped being the case.
It’s a rarity for new wrestlers to join the main roster. The developmental
system has been refined from a series of intimate tryout camps into a full
scale operation that could probably exist as something separate from WWE. This
means that men and women signed to developmental contracts spend longer
“learning” their craft because the process of creating a WWE Superstar has to
be justified within the company.
This could sound negative but I don’t intend it to be. On
the whole I think the developmental system WWE has works very well. It’s there
primarily to benefit those people signed by WWE who have no professional
wrestling experience. Years ago that would have almost exclusively meant sports
models. But there are a range of former American football players, rest of the
world football players, amateur wrestlers and other athletes stationed at the
Performance Center who have no pro wrestling experience but want to be a part
of the company’s future.
It’s a high profile minority who we perceive as being
short changed by the sprawling teaching system. Those who have given up main
event gigs on the independent scene or spots in New Japan or Ring of Honor, who
are on NXT every week being more entertaining than the majority of the overly
familiar wrestlers on RAW, are the ones we think of as being treated unfairly.
We see them putting on a great weekly show and get impatient for their
promotion. This is the downside of NXT.
In 2014 only five wrestlers were moved from NXT to the
main roster: Rusev, Adam Rose, Bo Dallas, Emma and Paige. Two of those names, Paige
and Rusev, are now established as legitimate stars within the company. Dallas,
Emma and Rose are essentially glorified jobbers. There’s nothing wrong with
being a name jobber in WWE but it’s not what’s needed right now. If only five
names a year are going to be introduced then they all need to succeed. Two new
marketable stars a year is not enough.
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| Overlook the weird makeup and it was a strong start for The Ascension on RAW. |
I’m expecting 2015 to have a greater success rate. A
proper debut (following a one off appearance on a 2014 edition of Main Event to
promote an NXT special) for The
Ascension, the premier team of the developmental system over the last two
years, came on the final RAW of 2014. They have a polished act with a
particularly believable finisher. Should WWE want to have another stab at making tag wrestling an entertaining feature of
their TV shows Konnor and Viktor could certainly help.
Beyond that nothing is confirmed but there are a number
of stars ready to progress to the main roster. Top of the list is Adrian Neville. He dropped the NXT championship
last month. The tradition of the last three years is that when someone loses
that title they get called up very soon afterwards. The Royal Rumble would be a
good time to debut a guy like Neville. A couple of spots could be designed to
let him impress and he could eliminate some main roster cannon fodder to add
further impact. It would be a safe environment to debut him in: major enough to
make a splash but crowded enough to offer him support.
As the man who defeated Neville for the NXT championship Sami Zayn stands a good chance of
leaving the developmental system behind this year. He’s a naturally likeable
man, has a string of good matches to his name, and has apparently impressed the
right people. Now that his journey to the title is over I’d expect him to have
a fairly substantial reign but I can’t see it lasting much beyond the summer.
Whenever he drops it he’ll be a logical call-up. I suspect he’ll do better than
Nev in the long run because he’s stronger on promos and is more charismatic.
Depending on how much we want to invest in the “drop the
title, get promoted” precedent that’s been set there’s a chance we could see Kevin Owens reach Monday nights before
the end of the year too. He has to be the current favourite to dethrone Zayn.
If he goes on to have a shorter reign than most he could lose the championship
himself before the end of the year and be in line for a promotion. Or he could
simply not win it and have a short stay in developmental. However you look at
it Owens has been immediately presented as a big deal in NXT, which means he’s
likelier than most to move on.
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| Guest stars spot on Main Event. Give it a while and they'll be RAW regulars. |
It’s not just the lads that are getting called up. Both Charlotte and Sasha Banks could be added to the Divas division within the next
few months. With AJ Lee unlikely to sign on for another stint in WWE when her
contract expires and only Paige and Natalya being knowledgeable and over enough
to make a match with a less experienced opponent work the main roster is going
to need some capable female wrestlers around soon. Banks started her career in
2010 and has developed one of the best characters in NXT over the last year.
She has put together a number of great matches in NXT. She’d be an ideal
replacement for Mrs CM Punk.
‘The Nature Girl’ started training for a wrestling career
considerably later and has benefited very much from being her father’s
daughter. But she’s also improved very quickly, to the point where she’s one of
WWE’s most reliable wrestlers or either gender. Her character work is nowhere
near Banks’s, or several other performers, but the fact that she’s basically
doing Ric Flair’s old shtick means it doesn’t matter. She has a set of taunts
and mannerisms that people will be familiar with that can help her get over, as
well as a logical reason for using them.
A distant third to leave the women’s division is Bayley. Like Zayn she’s naturally
likeable. Unlike Zayn she doesn’t have years of goodwill built up to help her
blaze a path to the main roster. That’s probably for the best. The way Emma was
destroyed last year (paired with Santino, jobbed out, then dropped) should
serve as a cautionary tale for anyone arguing in favour of Bayley being called
up immediately. But after Charlotte and Sasha Banks have moved one I think
she’ll be the next woman to move on.
Back with the guys Tyler
Breeze doesn’t seem likely to leave NXT this year but I could see him
becoming one of the top two or three names on the roster if Zayn and Neville
move on. An NXT title win isn’t out of the question for him. Nor is a face
turn. He already gets cheered at every taping and handles it pretty well for
such an obviously heel character. It would be interesting to see him switched
to the protagonist role for matches with a guy like Kevin Owens or Tyson Kidd.
Finally there are Finn
Bálor and Hideo Itami. Their
current work as a tag team has been pretty enjoyable. I’d like to see them face
off against The Vaudevillains and The Lucha Dragons but I can’t see them staying
together long enough. The tag team thing was just a way to introduce them to
the roster and give them an introductory feud. As the plan will be to use both as
singles guys on the main roster it’s to be expected that they’ll be split and
work as singles guys in NXT.
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| Bálor versus CJ Parker? I'd mark. |
Not that that’s a bad thing. Either of them against
practically anyone on the NXT roster would be great, although I doubt they’ll
be around long enough to run through all the possible matches. Both men would
have turned down large sums of money from New Japan, which means WWE will be
paying them far more than the average developmental worker. With that being the
case neither guy is going to stay in NXT for long. WWE will want them on the
main roster paying for their keep. Along with Neville and Zayn they strike me
as the most likely names to receive a call-up, and they’ll probably do it
without ever winning NXT gold.
The final thing I’ll mention here is that WWE needs to
plan things better when introducing these new names. Over the last few years
they’ve done well with The Shield and Bray Wyatt but they’ve failed with Big E,
Bo Dallas and Emma, amongst others. While the latter three were not going to
become immediate huge successes they should have become bigger than they are by
now. Nobody seems to get a storyline until they’ve slogged through a year or
two of meaningless filler and that hurts the credibility of the performers and
discourages people from taking an interest in them. I’d like to think things
are going to be different for the current crop of NXT names but, sadly, there
are no guarantees.
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