[OFFICIAL] NXT Aftermath, Review, and Ratings Thread

[Big Ol' Buckta AIDS]

Im all for it. Clearly this has been a show for the people who either don't have enough of a character to carry themselves ( See Shelton Benjamin ) or who aren't good enough to go to RAW or Smackdown! yet, so why not let the name refelect on what the show really is.
But in all honesty I don't see how this is going to work. As the ratings have shown, people aren't really interested in green wrestlers. If Vince is really so hell bent on doing a developmental show, Just put FCW on the air.

 

[Kanye South]

WWE ECW was a great concept. Until all of the ECW Originals faded back into the obscurity of bingo halls and bars. Thats when it started to downfall. If they are worried about ratings, then why in good fuck would they bring a bunch of no-name unknown wankers to main event a show? WWECW went wrong at about the same time Benoit died. What the brand should become is a somewhat retirement home for wrestlers. We can keep the guys like Christian, Ryder, Croft, Barreta, Reks, Archer and Tatsu, but bring in veterans like Mark Henry, Chavo Guerrero, Finlay, Wang Yang, and Kane. You could also bring in underpushed guys like Santino Marella, MVP, Mark Knox, Charlie Haas, and the like. It would give all wrestlers a chance to flourish and most likely get decent ratings. But WWE NXT is just a stupid fucking idea and most likely crash and burn.

 

[Trill Co$by]

In my opinion, WWE NXT will be a good thing. It will give the people who have been working in FCW but need massive crowd exposure that exposure they need. Sure, it'll feel like FCW all over again, but let's be honest you guys, the most important thing in WWE is getting used to the schedules.

So with WWE NXT bringing in more FCW talent so they can test the waters with them and get them used to the travel, I believe that's the smartest move to make.

My concern, however, is what will this do for Christian and his title? Will it be renamed or will there be no title at all?

 

[mooseman]

I'm very happy the ECW name will be taken away. I also like the fact that we are gonna see the up and coming talent. However guys like Christian, Benjamin and Regal should be moved to RAW or Smackdown. Goldust, released. Also the show hopefully will get a name change. If this is to be a brand NXT won't fly. NBA has the NBDL, MLB has the MiLB just call it Developemental or Minors. Also get off SYFY asap. Personally I would try to get USA to give them the 7pm - 8pm (central time) slot. Use it as a lead in to RAW. Another thing I want to see for example if Hennings kid is on the show have a Randy Orton scouting him for Legacy. Maybe have The Bellas scouting a team to manage. (not really) DH Smith just turned on Tyson Kidd. Kidd wants to find a partner to take down SMith and eventually get the tag belts, what do you know Kidd is in attendance scouting the match between Tatsu and Archer.

 

[mister_b1LL]

All ECW needed was a name change, and they even screwed that up. I still can't believe they tried to leave the letter gimmick in a futile attempt to get people to chant the name of the brand.

If anything, I would have just called it Next. It's an unusual title that'll get people wondering what the hell it means. Something as unoriginal as Next Generation or NXT is just not what they need. Even Superstars has a more creative name than that.

Nonetheless I'm gonna keep watching it. So long as they keep it the same format it's in and not removing the veterans like somebody thought up, I'm gonna stick with it. I like the talent the show has right now with Christian, Zack Ryder, and yes, even Abraham Washington.

 

[The Ultimate]

Thanks for making this thread Sid, I was waiting for someone to do it.

Anyways, I agree with all of you, this new developmental show is going suck! The name itself is stupid. It should have been called New Generation Wrestling (N.G.W) or Tuesday Night Wrestling, or something like that. Everyone is going to crap on this dumb new show that the so-called Creative Team thought up with their brilliant minds. How does Vince expect this show to be any better than the previous ECW? If anything it is going to be worse, because they won't have anyone to give it a boost. What is going to make people want to go this show? The only thing that I can come up with is that they will be able to watch Smackdown along with it. I mean some people might want to see it, could make for some ok tv. But it's definitely not worth the time and gas of going all the way to your local stadium to watch, new kids coming in and botching half of their moves.
I have a feeling that ratings for this show are not going to improve, even with the Syfy elements added. So basically it is just another spectacular move by Vince. Great job WWE, keep it up! With an "attitude" like this, TNA will be catching up with you in no time!

 

[Rated_R_4_Royal_Rumble]

First, what do you think of the reported concept of WWE NXT as has been reported on the newsboards? Do you see it being any more advantageous to what WWE is currently doing with ECW?

Yes I do. This show is going to be very similar to what we currently see on Tuesday Nights. A show with lots of young and fresh talent which is seemingly what WWE fans want nowadays given what I've read on these boards and seeing the results of the weekly WWE programming pushing young and fresh new talent into the main event. It will be more advantageous than what they are currently doing with ECW because the critics that aren't supportive of ECW for not being Extreme enough will leave it be and enjoy it for what it is. The Veterans like Christian,Regal,Shelton Benjamin,Gregory Helms,and Goldust will be free to wrestle elsewhere leaving room for new stars to become superstars. I see all positives in this new direction.

Secondly, do you have a better suggestion for what WWE should do with the show? It's obvious they do NOT want another third major brand at this point in time, however should they just replace the show with another show like Superstars instead, or should they even just cancel the show, based on the news of the intentions for it?

I don't think they should cancel the show because they have such a large roster and need to put the superstars they aren't using on Raw and Smackdown somewhere. I like the idea of what they're doing and look forward to the first broadcast.

 

[lghikas]

WOW so many people on here are prejudging this WAY to quick. Before something happens, you already have this notion that something is bad, than it really can't do anything and has already lost you, but when you come in with a more opened mind, you will find you will give a more fair judgement of things.

Than people talk about how ECW sucks because the ratings are already low and what not and how is bringing in new guys going to improve them. FUCK the RATINGS, they are the biggest lie in wrestling when judging how good a show is. With that logic you're telling me RAW is the best Wrestling show on TV????? BULLSHIT because most of the time, not always it's almost as bad as Impact. Smackdown and ECW on the other hand provide good to great wrestling and the ratings are low...and SD doesn't even get ratings. Hell when Impact was great it was drawing less than 1.0s that doesn't mean it was garbage.

People are always complaining about how WWE doesn't have good wrestling, obviously they haven't watched alot of ECW and now with them hopefully adding guys from FCW, they will beable to do what they do in FCW and you will find the wrestling will be good and great, just go watch Tyson Kidd vs Kaval in FCW or watch guys like Heath Slater and/or Justin Angel all guys in FCW that are really fun to watch in FCW, and probably be called or some of the first guys to be called into the new show.

Now I still think they need to keep a couple veterans on, someone like Regal...Goldust are great...people that can work well and mentor the younger guys. Throwing some of them into the mess that is RAW and sometimes can be SD would be a big mistake and mostly would have them get lost in the roster.

 

[Dysturbed]

Than people talk about how ECW sucks because the ratings are already low and what not and how is bringing in new guys going to improve them. FUCK the RATINGS, they are the biggest lie in wrestling when judging how good a show is. With that logic you're telling me RAW is the best Wrestling show on TV????? BULLSHIT because most of the time, not always it's almost as bad as Impact. Smackdown and ECW on the other hand provide good to great wrestling and the ratings are low...and SD doesn't even get ratings. Hell when Impact was great it was drawing less than 1.0s that doesn't mean it was garbage.

I agree that ratings don't reflect the actual quality of programming. In normal cases they can of course be a determination of whether or not a show stays on air but that doesn't change a shows quality. In this case determining that it "will" suck is already setting a bad tone in ones mind but if someone believes that the format doesn't sound like it's the kind of thing that matches their tastes then all power to them. People know their own tastes better than we do. Where this thread is concerned, the point that a lot of people seem to be making (which is often lost in their negativity yet is a valid point regardless) is that IF WWE is really changing the format partically because of low ratings then in this case they DO matter which is why people wonder what good a change will do if it doesn't fulfill the alleged intended purpose. Reiterating what I personally said i'm not sure if there will be a difference in them (nor do I care) but I do like the concept as it seems to be and has been with ECW.

 

[CJ The Pirate]

I can't understand this at all.

For months now I have been hearing how ECW is rubbish and it is nothing like the old fashioned ECW back in the 90's and my reply was... it isn't, but neither is Raw or Smackdown but you still watch that. But try as I might I just couldn't get people to break down that wall and just appreciate the show for being a Wrestling show which actually gave us, on average, three good matches in one hour. Because of that, the ratings have dropped. It's a spit on the face to ECW. I'll agree with that so what should they do?

The usual answers, starting with the most common and most popular, was to give it another hour. Put guys like Batista, Rey and Kane on there and have it as an equal brand. As much as I'd like something like that to happen, it never was going to. WWE doesn't want another two hour show. It'd involve having another roster touring, meaning more arena's would need to be booked. In turn, PPV's would have less Raw and Smackdown! matches meaning we'd have less storylines to watch and the lower card on those shows would suffer for that. The current setup is better in both a fiscal sense and in a development sense.

So the next option... change the name. Personally, it doesn't matter to me. ECW was Eastern Championship Wrestling before it was ever Extreme and back in those days, a chair shot was a rarity. Sure, the extreme thing is why people know it... but it's also part of the reason it died in the first place. So changing the name is the next logical step... and it's happening. But that seemingly isn't good enough.

WWE like to have veterans teach their young. Goldust, Regal and Helms aren't going anywhere. They will be there to make the next generation look good. That I will almost guarantee.

The name is fine. Yeah, it's a little corny and I don't know if it's gonna be spoken as 'Next', 'Next Generation' or 'En Ex TEE' (Which I hope it isn't... it'd be too similar to ECW.) but whatever it still means that they are focusing on the future. Which says a lot to me in that WWE have actually acknowledged that. Hopefully, Christian is to drop the ECW title soon to Benjamin or Ryder. Hopefully people like Brett Dibiase, Joe Hennig, Tyler Reks and Vance Archer will be given pushes onto Prime Time TV. Archer particularly could be given high profile feuds and go to fight at PPV's. It gives us a better chance to see some young talent. Back in the 90's, we used to get these developmental guys interfere in someones match and it would take us weeks to get used to them and actually begin to like them. Now, they can be presented to us in a show that is basically FCW Senior Year... As good as they might be in FCW, 99.9% of WWE fans either don't watch it, can't watch it or don't even consider that it exists.

I'm all for WWE NXT (if that is it's real name) and will be watching three weeks from now.

 

[lghikas]

I agree that ratings don't reflect the actual quality of programming, but where this thread is concerned, the point that a lot of people seem to be making (which is often lost in their negativity yet is a valid point regardless) is that IF WWE is really changing the format partically because of low ratings then in this case they DO matter which is why people wonder what good a change will do if it doesn't fulfill the intended purpose. Reiterating what I personally said i'm not sure if there will be a difference in them (nor do I care) but I do like the concept as it seems to be and has been with ECW.

I really don't think it has to deal with ratings, I mean it is SyFy ... not really a channel I think of when I think of wrestling on TV and I love ECW. If they wanted better ratings I think they would have to get ECW or whatever on a new channel. Yea I really don't think it will really change and I really don't want it to, but I guess if people are wondering why they think this will increase ratings I can see I guess but I don't think there is a reason to be so negative already against it. Plus I think if Danielson debuts on that show I think ratings would go up at least for a bit.

 

[The Son of Maximillion]

im just waiting for the marks to start complaining about changing it to nxt when all this time they wanted ecw to be gone. other than that i like the idea we could possibly see curt hawkins, joe henning, and especially low ki/senshi but now known as kaval, and bryan danielson. people dont give the new guys credit

 

[Southwind]

This is going to be great !!! A whole new show with a neat new name called "NXT" OMG I can't fucking wait to see this !!

Not, this is going to suck, what are they going to do with Christian, and all the other vets ? What about the ECW title, will the narcissist Vince burn it on live t.v. ? Why would this new "concept" change a damn thing ? Swagger, Morrison,, and other ECW guys have been stuck in a rut, and those are the only two stars ECW has spit out. (Punk was an indy guy).

This show will be fun to watch because it has train wreck written all over it, this new show will be nothing more than just a summary, a reflection of how god awful creative really is.

 

[mral82]

john morrison and the miz started on smackdown! Hawkins and Ryder debut on ecw if u can remember as the Major Bros(Brian and Brett). When the original ecw started who heard of Tommy Dreamer, The Dudleys, Rob Van Dam, Taz, Perry Saturn, New Jack, The Sandman, Sabu, and countless others not many cause it was only on in the Philadelphia area or when it was on PPV. ECW will always be the start for up'n'comin wrestlers. To me ECW never died and instead of the rumored NXT name I would've brought back a classic and named it TNT (Tuesday Night Titans). I hope this thing works out cause I like seein the future not HBK/Taker or Triple H/Jericho for the "4269th" time. It's time for the future of the company to step up as what I think will happen w/ Christian is he'll finally be WWE HW Champ this year for his hardwork for the company.

 

[lghikas]

Not, this is going to suck, what are they going to do with Christian, and all the other vets ? What about the ECW title, will the narcissist Vince burn it on live t.v. ? Why would this new "concept" change a damn thing ? Swagger, Morrison,, and other ECW guys have been stuck in a rut, and those are the only two stars ECW has spit out. (Punk was an indy guy).

This show will be fun to watch because it has train wreck written all over it, this new show will be nothing more than just a summary, a reflection of how god awful creative really is.

Swagger and Morrison the only two stars ECW has spit out????? Yea...right, guess The Miz hasn't done much nor Kofi Kingston or hell even the WWE Champion Sheamus, although all of them are in the upper mid card area of RAW constantly now. This is all typical IWC all over it, they ask for new guys, so WWE tries to do something about it and WAY before it even starts all quick to jump and say how BAD it will be.

 

[Wrestling_God_Y2J]

Ok, Vince is a BILLIONAIRE, for a reason, he's not dumb. He knows that MMA is getting huge and wants a piece of that audience. I think he's starting up a WWE mixed martial arts show... with the flash and fireworks of WWE, along with storylines... and real fighting. Story lines can then progress based on who wins the actual fight, etc.

Think about it... it would be Huge !!

 

[Dysturbed]

Ok, Vince is a BILLIONAIRE, for a reason, he's not dumb. He knows that MMA is getting huge and wants a piece of that audience. I think he's starting up a WWE mixed martial arts show... with the flash and fireworks of WWE, along with storylines... and real fighting. Story lines can then progress based on who wins the actual fight, etc.

Think about it... it would be Huge !!

He was a billionaire. Of course he's closer to being one than not but he supposedly isn't one anymore.

I'm assuming that you are not joking so I'll offer a serious response. The mma thing could be cool but I doubt it for now. Unless he has secretly having certain wrestlers train for it despite the fact that they clearly are competing as wrestlers in territories, has them come out to a brawl for it all like thing week after week for months or years and have an entire brand around it, or has secretly signed legit mma fighters that would prefer to work for Vince than known mma companies, the show will be as advertised possibly with some unknown tweaks but not likely anything to the degree of mma.

 

[Dysturbed]

I just think it's a better idea than the same old crap... especially new guys from FCW ?? That will suck !! - WWE is known to dissappoint...

Knowing that WWE has the FCW guys under contract with the hope and intention that they will successfully transition to the main roster, doesn't it make more sense for them to get a form of exposusre in front of a television audience of a certain size as opposed to debuting straight tt Raw or Smackdown and "sucking" even more becuase they won't be prepared for the big leagues? As I mentioned before when WWE debuted some new guys here and there and they maybe didn't do well people were cool with them not being good enough but these days withso many waiting in the wings having the Tuesday show seems to have a purpose.

As for Shane it's always possible that he is back with WWE or that he never really left and we were being played and it's always possible that one day, despite Vince's comments, WWE will do something mma related. At the moment though signs point to that not being the case. Maybe it would be better but that doesn't automatically make it realistic.

Edit: I didn't double post. The post above mine was deleted by a mod I guess

 

[Wrestling_God_Y2J]

I think you're probably right.

But, think about Vinnie... he is power hungry... he tried to compete with the biggest sport in the U.S. - NFL football. It failed miserably, but he tried it.

I think he sees his audience declining all the time... look at TV ratings back in the mid-1990's before MMA was on TV, and they were much higher than today. Vince may see MMA as "The Next Generation"

If he has pro wrestling, AND MMA... he's got it all covered. He would make his MMA company bigger and better than UFC, He would be the biggest in all fighting sports.... Mr. Power Hungry... muwahahaha

Just a thought.

 

[wbuqed]

ok i read as much as I could of this thread before I had to put my reply in, i read 4 pages so apologies if i repeating anything said in pages 5-7.

I think the rebranding of ECW is a good idea, mostly cause of what was said earlier that ECW has become watered down and essentially ECW can't get any real play in the mainstream (opening every PPV with the ECW title matches even when you have Christian and Benjamin???)

In that jest I think it will give Vince a chance to get Christian out of the doghouse and put him back into one of the big 2 brands (maybe reuniting with Edge), also bonafide vets will get one last run in the big brands.

There are 2 reasons why I object to this- first, with WWE superstars still on, the matches and creative elements are still being diluted by being passed around to 4 different shows, even if you don't consolidate the brands I think you should limit the amount of shows. Another reason is, I think with the FCW that the wrestlers for the most part are ready for a mainstream run and they were given a better chance with programming like ECW then they will with NXT, cause essentially the matches will be nobody vs nobody with no tension involved, not to say that wouldn't be a great match, but let's face it, given what ECW, WCW and WWE/F gave us over the last idk how many years with storylines, and double crosses i dont know about you guys but I can't watch standard 1 on 1 wrestling without knowing that there is subplot to the match (call me weird or a moron but thats just the way im wired) Also, essentially if we are calling NXT the limbo between FCW and the actual WWE (Raw/Smackdown) doesn't that kill the idea of putting unknown wrestlers in crowds or bringing em in through unknown channels.

Anyway hope I either made you think or made you laugh

 

[Dysturbed]

It failed miserably, but he tried it

Eventually he'l possibly try it but not likely this soon. I don't think that at least some people signing with WWE for mma purposes wouldn't have been leaked.

I think he sees his audience declining all the time... look at TV ratings back in the mid-1990's before MMA was on TV, and they were much higher than today. Vince may see MMA as "The Next Generation"

Ratings declining go way beyond MMA and beyond even the lack of competition. (which is changing soon to a degree). Inevitability is the main reason. We're talking about something that produces new scripted primetime programming every single week with no repeats and that would happen with just Raw but now we're talking about Smackdown and even ECW. Daytime soap operas have more shows than that but with primetime, in America at least, WWE is a one of a kind thing. No show that creates so much scripted programming in primetime doesn't eventually decline in ratings and go off the air or do so before ratings can decline. WWE on the other hand keeps on going but naturally the same number of people having interest was never going to stay the same. This is not a knock on wrestling but when it was at it's peak it was a fad or at least in a specific phase. The buzz it had, the number of people wearing nwo, dx, etc shirts all over, and so on was happening in great numbers. That stopped even before MMA was huge. Also when something cool happens it's expected to escalate and become even better cause anything that isn't equal or better is somewhat of a disappointment and not as special. In the time period that you speak of everything seemed new and was special but eventually WWE(F at the time) was unable to constantly upstage itself. Like I said it was inevitable.

.if people needed to see some Extreme then WWE should bring back the Hardcore title to the brand as their secondary chapionship that would boost the raiting...whats gonna happen to the Title will it be renamed?
ECW!!!!!!!ECW!!!!!ECW!!!!!ECW!!!!

Supposedly Bret Hart, Goldberg, Flair, the NWO and about a dozen other things would "boost the ratings" on the main shows over the years and each time it works temporarily if at all. Meanwhile a certain portion of would complain that WWE's version of hardcore is too half assed to be worthy of the name just like they used to do say.

Seeing "extreme" would be great and maybe boost the Tuesday show and the first and even second ECW ppv in WWE were great to see but does anyone really think that Vince has any intention of doing anything on the third brand to upstage Raw or Smackdown?
I don't doubt that Vince wants the Tuesday show to be some sort of success and I personally would love to see something huge set the brand apart as from others as possible . However, if "lower tier" and a few very established wrestlers were to perform in matches that upstaged the things that the main eventers were going through and enough people took massive interest in it, it could come at the expense of Vince's main focus because what if people were more concerned with the hardcore portion of programming than the main event portion?

Again I'm not saying that it wouldn't be great but it doesn't sound realistic. Back in the day WCW was able to have the cruiserweight division and WWE had plenty of awesome midcard things going on but in those times even if something was lackluster the overall product drowned it out. These days every single thing, good and bad are more noticeable for whatever reason and therefore I don't think that Vince would want to essentially compete amongst himself by having a brand (NXT/ECW) or some sort of concept like frequent hardcore matches or mma possibly outshine Raw/Smackdown in certain ways.

 

[Captain Insane0]

its so crazy that people complain about seeing the same old things but ive read so many posts saying "im not gonna watch it" just because NXT is going to feature young up and comers. Maybe Vince should have chose another name from the start because i barely saw any extremeness lol. With that being said ECW has been so consistent. Theyve had better wrestling matches in their one hour than raw has for the last couple week with the exception of the last 2 weeks. Smackdown was always ranked 1 then ECW then Raw. The show might bomb or it could flourish we dont know but if you are a wrestling fan you should watch it no matter what. You'll be able to see the future stars. you migth be even able to see actual stars that are being repackaged.

 

[Slowdude]

Seriously I've read things like NXT will be no bodies vs no bodies. Thats what ECW has been for two and a half fucking years. On ECW your even debuting from FCW and are being given a chance to get over with a national audience (CM Punk, Jack Swagger, Evan Bourne, The WWE Champion Sheamus etc) , repackaging superstars that no one could give a fuck about anymore at the time (The Miz, John Morrison), giving older stars a chance to be at the top (Matt Hardy, Mark Henry, Kane, hell even Chavo).

What I described there is what ECW has been about for over two and a half years. It was great the entire time. The extreme in the ECWWE Disappeared in 2006, it did get over it. Sadly not many people realised that are bitching too this day. Then you have the same people saying that since Vinnie Mac is doing what they've all wanted to happen this entire time and renaming it to stop tarnishing the ECW name they bitch that since the name is getting changed the letters ECW are being tarnished?

I don't know, changing ECW to NXT doesn't effect me. The show will be exactly the same as it was last year, last month, last week, this week and will be the same after its changed to NXT.

 

[Tastycles]

It's a stupid idea to make the young guys the primary focus. The popularity of developmental leagues of anything is directly proportional to the popularity of the actual product that it is the developmental of. That is why NCAA American Football is watched more than any of the other college sports, because the NFL is watched more than any of the other major leagues.

In a period of wrestling recession, a minor league isn't a very good idea. Christian may not be a traditional big name draw, but he's certainly popular and watchable and removing him as the primary focus without replacing him is suicide. The only way that the NXT "brand" will have a hope in hell of succeeding is if it has a marquee main event every week. Basically, for anyone to watch the show, they need a Smackdown calibre main event on there somewhere, otherwise this is destined for disaster. The name is shit, but it's better than the ECW one, I hope they don't change the music though.

 

[lghikas]

Basically, for anyone to watch the show, they need a Smackdown calibre main event on there somewhere, otherwise this is destined for disaster. The name is shit, but it's better than the ECW one, I hope they don't change the music though.

I will have to disagree, in fact I would argue that a SD lvl main event would and does cause over exposure for those involved, being the fact that ECW rarely gets A single PPV match they don't really need a great main event week in and week out, and they generally have their "PPV" matches on ECW, and when they do have a great main event it will actually feel special and not just like another match. Just look at some of the Main Events ECW has had Christian vs Regal/Ryder not really anything close to a big name but I can't speak for other but those or most of them delivered to entertain me and left me satisfied.