NXT and it's decreasing quality

[PompeyDJ]

Quite simple really.
NXT has gone severely downhill since season 1. Not only has the quality of matches gone down, so has all the entertainment and the new stars being produced. Let's look over the seasons.

Season 1
Produced: Wade Barrett (Winner, Intercontinental Champion)
Justin Gabriel (Runner up, 3 Time WWE Tag Team Champion With Heath Slater)
David Otunga (3rd place, 1 Time WWE Tag Team Champion With John Cena)
Heath Slater (3 Time WWE Tag Team Champion With Justin Gabriel)
Darren Young
Skip Sheffield
Daniel Bryan (1 Time United States Champion)
Michael Tarver

Notes: Produced Nexus, New Nexus and The Corre
Wade Barrett main evented Summerslam (with Nexus), Night of Champions, Bragging Rights, Survivor Series and TLC.
Skip Sheffield and Michael Tarver have been out of action through injury but were part of the original Nexus.
Darren Young was kicked out of Nexus and has been appearing on Superstars and dark matches since then.

Season 2
Kaval (Winner)
Michael McGillicutty (Runner up)
Alex Riley (3rd place)
Husky Harris
Percy Watson
Lucky Cannon
Eli Cottonwood
Titus O'Neil

Notes: Kaval lost his title shot against Dolph Ziggler.
Kaval was released in December.
Michael McGillicutty and Husky Harris joined Nexus but have been sent back to FCW.
Alex Riley is The Miz's apprentice and has been frequently appearing on Raw.
Percy Watson has been appearing on Superstars and dark matches.

Season 3

Kaitlyn (Winner)
That's all worth mentioning.

Notes: Kaitlyn has appeared on Smackdown a few times
This season caused NXT to be moved to WWE.com

Season 4
Johnny Curtis (Winner)
Brodus Clay (Runner up)
Derrick Bateman (3rd place)
Byron Saxton
Conor O'Brian
Jacob Novak

Notes: Johnny Curtis hasn't made an appearance since winning.
Brodus Clay has been appearing with Alberto Del Rio in recent weeks.

Season 1 - Very Successful
Season 2 - Fairly Successful
Season 3 - Failure
Season 4 - Currently a failure except for Brodus Clay
Season 5 - Currently going on and no one really cares

Thoughts?

 

[cboedeker2]

I was there live for the NXT taping last night, and you are COMPLETELY RIGHT! I still don't really get the point of having NXT with Tough Enough coming next week. Tough Enough is a MUCH better platform with which to create stars than NXT is. Right now, WWE is making the same mistake with NXT as they did with the original Tough Enough series. They're not putting big stars on as trainers. I'm sorry to say it, but nobody gives a damn about Chavo Guerrero, Hornswoggle, JTG, or any of the others that are currently trainers. Now, if you had guys like John Cena and Triple H there to train the guys, that would be different, people might actually care, but they don't, so nobody does. Also, as a side note, they only taped TWO matches for NXT last night (or only two that I saw, anyway), and during the last, which was a tag team match, the entire crowd of 15,106 people were chanting "This is boring" lol! Gotta love that about Chicago fans though. When they don't like something, they get VERY vocal about it.

 

[Find'er Woo'er Ryder]

NXT is not pointless right now and won't be pointless when Tough Enough debuts next week. Tough Enough allows regular men and women with no wrestling background to have a chance to prove themselves as WWE Superstars. NXT is a show that allows already employed WWE superstars from FCW to move up to the main-roster. It is necessary for the next genneration of Superstars. It shows who gets a big pop and who gets great heat from the crowd. Now as you were saying if guys like John Cena and Triple H were training them it would be better. That is true but they are not actually training them. The entire show is scripted from day one. I'm sure the winner is picked before that. The only reason they allow online voting is to see who everyone likes.

 

[PompeyDJ]

NXT is not pointless right now and won't be pointless when Tough Enough debuts next week. Tough Enough allows regular men and women with no wrestling background to have a chance to prove themselves as WWE Superstars. NXT is a show that allows already employed WWE superstars from FCW to move up to the main-roster. It is necessary for the next genneration of Superstars. It shows who gets a big pop and who gets great heat from the crowd. Now as you were saying if guys like John Cena and Triple H were training them it would be better. That is true but they are not actually training them. The entire show is scripted from day one. I'm sure the winner is picked before that. The only reason they allow online voting is to see who everyone likes.

i'm not against the idea of making new superstars. but the quality of the show has decreased so much that it's becoming unwatchable and the rookies don't have the same ability to perform and entertain that the Season 1 rookies did. Even McGillicutty's "This is the moment starting now" promo is better than some of the things i've seen on Season 4

 

[vermilion]

It is and always has been completely pointless. Running obstacle courses, having improv promos? If 99% of the current roster did this, they would've never made it. How about calling up FCW guys like they have in the past? I mean, if a guy like Wade Barrett was ready, then call him up. If Daniel Bryan was wanted to be on the roster, add him. No need for weeks of silly games and crap, only to make everyone but one look like a loser. I swear this company has forgotten how to get people over...

 

[johnseamann]

They're keeping NXT because of international contracts, just as they will keep Superstars once it comes off WGN. The only way around would be that ALL international stations that still broadcast NXT canceled the show, or made some sort of agreement to replace it with Tough Enough or something. That's all that can be done from the business point of view. From the product point of view, it is simply worthless, it adds nothing to the WWE and it should die forever.

 

[vermilion]

They're keeping NXT because of international contracts, just as they will keep Superstars once it comes off WGN. The only way around would be that ALL international stations that still broadcast NXT canceled the show, or made some sort of agreement to replace it with Tough Enough or something. That's all that can be done from the business point of view. From the product point of view, it is simply worthless, it adds nothing to the WWE and it should die forever.

Agreed, and I really think Superstars should be added to the website instead. I'd probably actually watch Superstars if it was on WWE.com. It's a nice forum for the lower card guys that don't get time on TV to hone their characters and skills.

 

[CuddleBuns84]

NXT would be better, if it wasn't trying to be a game show. If it was just the rookies, battling it out, having feuds with one another, it wouldn't be too bad.

Instead of giving everyone a veteran to work with, they need build themselves up. I didn't see Bill Goldberg have Arn Anderson as his mentor. They need to build the talent on their own. Not this glorified buddy system.

I think it's own brand, with no name guys would be a lot better. You can select one person to be the host, or have a guest GM for the show, to increase the ratings. Like having Jim Ross, be the guest GM one season, then have a heel do the next. Hell, not even have a season. It just needs to be it's own Brand. Have guest GMs for a month or so, then go to the next one. When someone is building up heat or pops, get them off the show. It's that simple.

 

[Dzone]

Very true, the concept was correct but everyone, including WWE themselves I think, knew NXT will have a short shelf life.

It's almost a proven failure now but I hope there's NXT6 with all the top FCW stars etc and I hope it goes away with a bang.

I like Cuddlebuns' idea and I'd say drop a few very low card talents and let NXT take over from the god awful Superstars, let all the lower card talent have huge fueds and also maybe build the prestige of the tag belts/division aswell as the Women's division (if, e.g. Kong, can't revive it that is).

 

[vermilion]

NXT would be better, if it wasn't trying to be a game show. If it was just the rookies, battling it out, having feuds with one another, it wouldn't be too bad.

Instead of giving everyone a veteran to work with, they need build themselves up. I didn't see Bill Goldberg have Arn Anderson as his mentor. They need to build the talent on their own. Not this glorified buddy system.

I think it's own brand, with no name guys would be a lot better. You can select one person to be the host, or have a guest GM for the show, to increase the ratings. Like having Jim Ross, be the guest GM one season, then have a heel do the next. Hell, not even have a season. It just needs to be it's own Brand. Have guest GMs for a month or so, then go to the next one. When someone is building up heat or pops, get them off the show. It's that simple.

Here's the thing, that show already exists. It's called Florida Championship Wrestling. I don't understand why they don't televise that anywhere BUT Florida, and why the WWE doesn't make any references to it at all. Point out that Lucky Cannon is the Florida Heavyweight Champion, that he's the man down there, instead of treating these guys like they've never wrestled before or something. Get rid of NXT, it's a stupid concept. FCW acknowledges constantly that they are a "conduit to superstardom in the WWE". The guys openly shoot promos about trying to make it to the big leagues and make an impact so when they disappear, you know why.

 

[Notorious718]

After NXT 1 (in my eyes), the show has never been anything more than a glorified FCW. I do agree that the overall quality of NXT has diminished significantly since NXT 1. But I also think that there's still a reason to keep it around because (as mentioned earlier) it's a good way to put the FCW talent in front of a large audience to see if they can handle being part of the big time. That said, the concept was good when it was announced but the execution of said concept not so much. In addition, most of the talent who have made their names on NXT will most likely not be WWE mainstays (with the exception of Wade Barrett and maybe Brodus Clay) as most of them have had little to moderate success recently. After all, when the WINNER of NXT 2 gets released within less than a year of making his debut on the main roster you know there's a problem.

 

[shooter_mcgavin]

I think many are short changing Season 3 here. Was it a bad show, probably but the talent overall was quite strong showing the potential of the Diva's Edition with Naomi and AJ. They both proved that there is such thing as a high quality and athletic diva's match .

Heck I was laughing in the tag team match between Kelly Kelly/Naomi vs. The Bella's how commentators were calling THe Bella's and Kelly Kelly pro's when it was obvious Naomi was the one carrying the match.

I guess that's why we have yet to see AJ and Naomi, from what I heard its because their skill could expose the current Diva's division ... go figure

 

[JBearb]

I never really was a fan of NXT except for the first few episodes. I originaly watched it because I am a DB fan and thought it had potential after the DB and Jericho match but after they started all those crappy challenges they killed the show in my opinion and lost me as a viewer.

 

[Greydon]

Supposedly before the Redemption season they were planning a Generational NXT with the rookies and their legend parents. I think this would have been better then what we currently have.

I see thet Si-fi did to NXT as the same thing WGN America did to Superstars. They were promised one thing, but got another. I think NXT should have been the TV show for FCW, but Vince doesn't like that. As we see with the Evan Bourne comment he made vs. steph's of pushing Bourne. I think Vince is too set in his ways, and refuses to change.

Season 6 will have Tyler Black, that is an upside.

 

[blkshp]

Season 6 should be better with Seth Rollins(Tyler Black), Richie Steamboat, Brett Dibiase and Duke Rotundo, but they need to change up the concepts. No more dumb obstacle courses or party games. Dump the pros and have legends (its not like WWE doesn't have enough)vote with fans. Plus have matches in steel cages and ladder matches for prizes. Have them challenge superstars as a "learning experience" and in some cases get pulverized, in other cases squeak out a win. Make it a damn wrestling show again!

 

[Reddog1146]

I agree, after season 2 NXT went downhill and i have stopped watching it. it liked how they debuted new superstars in the past better. sometimes they would be hyped for weeks and sometimes they would debut at random. also, you never knew their moves, what their finishers were and that was fun. they need to cancel NXT and make another show like ECW i miss it