Thank you so much, I'm glad I'm not the only one who enjoys NXT.
I was so reluctant to get into it, mostly because of the negative connotations associated with the phrase "development program". How many people watch the NBDL (national basketball development league) compared to the actual NBA? My friend kept urging me to give a shot and once I did it didn't take very long for me to see there was nothing amateur about NXT.
I honestly think it is superior to WWE in several ways, but the OP states it beautifully by saying "it makes you realize why you became a wrestling fan". There's a special authenticity and raw atmosphere on the programming that is excellently punctuated by passionate and knowledgeable commentating. I think so many years of Michael Cole being a puppet and Jerry Lawler being disinterested has made us forget how important commentary is to the storytelling of match and development of a superstar. This storytelling does wonders to put over the elite ring psychology shown by the majority of the roster. I think 2 of the best people in the whole company in the ring are Sasha Banks and Kevin Owens, who both play their characters to an absolute tee and seem to be in kayfabe 24/7. Their matches automatically mean so much more than the Bo Dallas/R-Truth matches that end in DQ or by a screw finish every week on RAW, simply because the participants' passion are so prevalent during every second of the match.
Simplicity is a huge factor in the creative process of a wrestling show IMO. Everyone has a story, they have the morals and goals, then they clash each other in physical contests for said morals in goals. Up on the main roster, they try too hard to be unpredictable and complex that it ends up losing more interest than it garners (and its been that way for YEARS). They allow these contests to take place in more than 4-7 minutes, which gives each wrestler time to tell their story in the best possible way. I'm not sure if Sasha has ever worked a match longer than 7 minutes on the main roster but I'll tell you there's no way she would've even moved up if they restricted her this much in NXT. She's routinely putting on classic 15, 20, and even 30 minute matches with various members of the roster, I honestly think she might be the best worker of any gender in the business (Seth makes it very hard for me to confidently say it though).
I'm going to cut my rant short here, but for anyone who doesn't watch NXT I please implore you to watch and guarantee you'll be entertained. I certainly cannot say that about the main roster. I bolded some big points but I think others include match individuality (every match is different, doesn't follow the same formulaic pattern every main roster match follows), crowd reaction (it's always thunderous but I'm sure if RAW put out something remotely good they could get a good reaction too), and exposure (there's another thread on this forum criticizing how much main roster programming there is, roughly 8 hours a week compared to 1 hour for NXT).
As for main players, most of the people that drew me into NXT 2015 are trapped on the main roster but I still have a tremendous amount of respect and interest for Enzo & Cass, Apollo Crews, and Chad Gable & Jason Jordan. The four horsewomen are 4 of the best performers in the business and specifically Sasha and Bayley should be the two biggest stars in Women's history (but Creative will fuck that up). Kevin Owens was my favorite male wrestler but I really enjoyed Sami Zayn and Tyler Breeze as well. I enjoy Finn Balor but not nearly as much as the rest of the wrestling fan base does, I'm not entirely sure why.
