It was 16 years ago this week when the original NXT kicked off Season 1 on the SyFy network, replacing WWE’s half-hearted attempt to resurrect the ECW brand for the four years prior. Since then, we’ve seen a reality TV-style wrestling show evolve into a place where stars from the independent scene and other smaller companies would be introduced to the WWE crowd. The Black & Gold brand that many of us remember fondly would gradually become the rainbow paint splotch, NXT 2.0 that launched the careers
of several main roster stars like Bron Breakker and Carmelo Hayes.
But for the last year or two, NXT has become less of a viable third brand and has turned more and more into a true developmental territory. They’ve become exceedingly more reliant on talent from their NIL program rising up through the ranks, while bringing in experienced indie talents has largely become a thing of the past. Despite scoring a TV deal on the CW and ratings being pretty consistent (though, with all the confusion around Nielsen’s constantly evolving system, we should probably take ratings with a grain of salt), it’s not really a hot take to say that the on-screen NXT product is the weakest it’s been in….. well, perhaps ever.
Recently, they have deviated from the NXT formula of old that made the show so successful in the beginning. Gone are some of the old school tenets of how to build up new talent, replaced by what seems like a room full of writers throwing a bunch of stuff against the wall to see what sticks. And some things do stick.
I have praised Ethan Page’s current run for weeks in the NXT previews here on Cageside, and he has been doing some great work as one of their top heels. Jacy Jayne beating Stephanie Vaquer months ago was widely questioned, but since then, she has established herself as one of NXT’s top stars. While Sol Ruca and Zaria’s friendship has teetered on a break up for far too long, both women’s stocks are higher than they have ever been. There are other success stories here and there, but on most weeks, the weekly NXT broadcast is a slog to get through.
There were definite stretches years back where NXT was arguably the best written and best produced show under the WWE umbrella. Two hours always flew by, everything flowed well, and it was a show that many of us looked forward to all week. In my eyes, that’s just not where NXT falls anymore. It’s gone from must-see TV for me to something I have on in the background while I’m doing other things.
So What’s the Problem?
Or perhaps a better question….. what changed?
Part of the issue with the current NXT product isn’t even the fault of Shawn Michaels or anyone else down in Orlando, but can instead be attributed to how much the scope of WWE has grown over the past few years. In simpler times, the WWE had their two main brands and NXT, giving them between 7 and 8 hours a week of television to produce. It got to a point where their roster was simply too big for the amount of TV time they had per week, which led to some big rounds of roster cuts.
Recently, though, they’ve added an hour of Evolve and have sent many of their main roster and developmental talents for prominent roles on TNA and AAA. Pundits point to WWE and TKO’s reach expanding as a bad thing for the wrestling business overall, and it’s hard to argue some of the points that they make, but what’s clear is that they are now able to accommodate a much bigger roster than they’ve had in the past, which keeps more wrestlers employed.
The problem with spreading your larger roster so thin, though, is that less of their programming feels important now. The 7 or 8 hours a week that the WWE talent was being featured on has ballooned up to 10 or 11 hours. Acts that creative doesn’t have anything for are simply shuttled off to a different cog in the TKO machine and featured there for a little while. The War Raiders get destroyed by Oba Femi? Let’s send them off to AAA for a little while. Creative has nothing for Brooks Jensen, Lexis King, Stacks, and Charlie Dempsey on NXT? Well, they can just go start an invasion storyline on TNA.
On top of all of these moving parts, HBK and his creative team have had to worry about his talent getting promoted to the main roster as well. As a former JV baseball coach, I’m all too familiar with the feeling of one of my players getting called up the Varsity squad with very little notice and having to rewrite my lineup card completely the next day. Stephanie Vaquer got called up to the main roster and had to abruptly lose her title to Jacy Jayne. Oba Femi got promoted and just left the NXT Title in the middle of the ring. Trick Williams was rumored for a call up for months and as he just sort of lingered in NXT and TrickNA, people rightfully worried that his main roster debut would eventually be a flop. All that being said, booking NXT when your roster is at the whim of Raw and Smackdown can’t be easy. Michaels and company undoubtedly can have their hands full, but I can’t help but think that they could be doing better.
…. And What’s the Solution?
At the end of the day, wrestling is fictional, so the ones charged with writing the stories we see week to week can do whatever they see fit. There’s nothing saying they can’t come back one week and just start completely fresh like they were playing Universe Mode on WWE 2K. NXT 2.0 was a definitive reboot with a brand new color scheme, and while that in itself wouldn’t serve as a reboot, some new branding could help. (For the record, I wouldn’t actually call it NXT 3.0. Maybe Triple H can offer some insight on how to start a new era?)
On a company wide scale, I think the best way for NXT to get back to being a solid wrestling program from week to week is for WWE in general to have a more definitive roster structure. Less talent crossing over from brand to brand will allow for more consistency and allow everyone to know where they should tune in to invest in characters that they are entertained by. Having less movement will also create more storyline synergy. Taping schedules of all of their shows can throw this into flux and make the logistics of injuries and wrestlers toting titles with them to different brands annoyingly inconsistent.
As far as what the NXT team can control, I think it’s as easy as getting back to what made NXT such a draw in the Black & Gold era. Build characters in simple, straightforward ways with more backstage vignettes and brief interactions and less convoluted talking segments that mess with the flow of the show. Find ways to establish the motives and personalities of their young talent to give the audience a reason to keep tuning in. One of the charms of NXT has always been watching the rise of new talent, as well as the first WWE exposure of talent from the indies or other smaller companies. The Black & Gold NXT consistently gave us a reason to invest in the wrestlers, and thereby invest in the show as a whole.
From a fan’s perspective, I do think it’s going to take some time and patience. With Trick, Oba, and Je’Von moving up and others like Blake Monroe, Ricky Saints, and Ethan Page possibly following them in the not-so-distant future, the roster turnover will undoubtedly continue. It’s not going to happen overnight. It may not even happen in 2026, but with every setback comes an opportunity to grow and there is no reason NXT can’t get back to being one of the best weekly wrestling shows on TV.
Time for you to chime in. Let us know how you would fix NXT in the comments below!
