Simply put, for most of the Indy guys that joined like Balor and nakamura, they didn’t try to improve them at all, they just figure that since they were over in japan then it will get over in NXT and it worked until they got on the big stage and they were doing the same shit they were doing in NXT and in japan and fans weren’T reacting the same way.
As for Bayley, the character pretty much killed her, the whole cartoony hugger thing might work with a smaller crowd but with a mainstream crowd it doesn’T always work
As far as sasha is concern, i always thought she was a better heel then babyface, as a heel she had personality which is a plus when you get called up on the main roster, but as a babyface, she more boring then watching a 3 hour raw episode. That’s how boring she is.
The job of the trainer in NXT isn’T to please the fans, it’s to give those wrestlers, even those they come from the indies, all the tools needed to succeed on the main roster. But they are to busy trying to be the cool brand that they forget why they started the brand to begin with.
I’m always going to compare NXT to the last few years of WWECW when they were using him as a bridge show for the FCW wrestlers and were using it as a way to get young talent over before they put them on Raw or Smackdown. You had guys like Sheamus, kofi kingston, evan bourne and jack swagger, just to name those guys become big stars on that brand, then you would transfer them to either raw or smackdown and they had to prove themselves all over again and some became big stars over time and some tanked and vanishes. That’s kinda of the job of NXT, but right now, all you have is a bunch of mid card guys wrestling each other in the main event.
If i look at the current roster of NXT, i see maybe between 3 or 4 acts that can make it as big stars on the main roster and one of them NXT already screwed him up and is getting called up at the worst possible time and that’S EC3. The other that i see potential are the undisputed era, tomasso ciampa and aleister black, that’s because they are the only ones out of the whole roster that really have the total package of great character work, and are good in ring. Everybody else has a negative and a positive going for them and that why they will fail on the main roster.
You look at all the stupid gimmick that NXT came up with over the years. The ascension, tyler Breeze, no way jose, tye dillinger and the vaudevillains just to name those. How in the hell do you want these guys to get over on the main roster when you give them gimmick that haven’t worked for 30 plus years. That’s on NXT not the main roster.
The creative team on the main roster expect that the NXT guys that gets called up are ready to go when they get call up and will just continue the character development that was started in NXT, if they call them up to soon, they will fail for sure because fans don’T have a reason to connect with those new characters. It’s like if i’m watching Flash on a regular bases but i’m not watching supergirl and arrow, then suddenly one of their characters is becoming a regular on the show, i’m not going to get attach to him right away because i don’t know that character. If NXT create bland character, the main roster will push bland character because it’s not their job to create a backstory for those character, it’s the creative team in NXT to create that and pass it along to them.
The other problem is, just like WWECW had back then, is that NXT as the luxury of having a smaller roster and just one hour of tv each week which isn’t live either so it’s easier to give the illusion that your wrestlers are star when they get less tv time. The more they get tv time the more they get expose. The prime example of that is Johnny gargano. Nothing against the guy, he’s one hell of a wrestlers and if wrestling was just about the in ring work, he would be on of the top guy in WWE, but his biggest problem is that he really doesn’t have any charisma and it shows how bad he his at acting. i watch his promo he did after he turn heel on youtube and i couldn’t stop laughing because i could tell right away that he was poorly acting the vignette. The guys isn’t able to emote the right emotion and that’s why i feel NXT trainers should really work on this aspect of his game before sending him to the main roster because in this incarnation, he’s guarantee a spot on the 205 live roster. Another one that i love but i’m scare for him on the main roster is velveteen dream, not really because he’s not a good wrestler or doesn’t have any character presence because he does, but because the gimmick feel so dated that i’m scared that the mainstream audience might not really understand the gimmick and that because it’s such a cartoony gimmick that he gets stuck with the other cartoony gimmick that NXT produce and are still working in WWE.
In the end, and i know that a i rambled on, NXT should be a place to help train wrestlers and makes sure they they are really for the mainstream audience but in the end, they are too busy being the cool brand that they somewhat forget to work with these major stars in helping them get to the next level and be all around better performer mostly because of the audience that they are serving.
