The following article was originally published with RealSport on June 2, 2017.
Last week, in the first edition of Wrestling Today, I covered the issues with how the nature of competition within the wrestling business has changed in recent years. As the industry has evolved around the obvious top dog, the WWE has also been able to evolve from within. Easily the biggest change in recent years has been the introduction and subsequent explosion of NXT.
The WWE’s hybrid of a developmental brand and “indie with a real budget” style of their weekly show has endeared it to many fans, but it’s also made a huge impact on the industry as a whole. To see how much NXT has changed things, you don’t have to look any further than their current roster.
All The Talent
The best way to illustrate just how loaded NXT’s roster is would be to look at the card for their most recent special, NXT TakeOver: Chicago. The event featured only five matches, standard for TakeOver specials, and had four championships on the line. Normally the event only features three championship matches, but the WWE United Kingdom Championship has been a bit of an orphan since being created. The title will surely find its home on the upcoming weekly UK-based show on the network, but it lives in NXT until that time comes.
The show featured several notable bouts with some of NXT’s brightest stars. Veterans of the independent scene like Roderick Strong, Eric Young, Johnny Gargano, Hideo Itami, and Tommaso Ciampa all played crucial roles. Pete Dunne and Tyler Bate raised the bar in their match for the United Kingdom Championship, and even TNA-legend Bobby Roode and homegrown talent The Authors of Pain helped make the event something special.
As good as the event was, there were some obvious absences. Competitors who are already at the skill level to deserve a spot on a TakeOver special, but didn’t get one, include Aleister Black, Andrade “Cien” Almas, Drew McIntyre, Kassius Ohno, and No Way Jose. When you factor in the plethora of lower level talent that hasn’t yet gotten to shine, the rising stars like The Velveteen Dream and Cezar Bononi, and former tag team specialist Buddy Murphy and Wesley Blake, you’ll notice that NXT’s roster is absolutely loaded with talent.
Recognizing the Indies
One of the things that has changed significantly since the rise of NXT has been WWE’s willingness to pursue competitors who have already made big names for themselves on the independent wrestling scene. For years, WWE tried to stick to talent whose careers had essentially been born and raised within the confines of World Wrestling Entertainment. There were exceptions, but they were seen as just that.
Exactly what caused the shift is still debatable. Some insist that the rise (and disappearance) of CM Punk has made WWE come around to wanting indie talent in hopes of recreating that magic. Others say that it was Daniel Bryan who changed the game with his underdog run to the top of the company at WrestleMania 30. Bryan defeated Triple H, Randy Orton, and Batista all in the same night. There’s perhaps no more symbolic way to illustrate an “indie guy” conquering the prototypical WWE talent.
The truth is that the careers of both CM Punk and Daniel Bryan played a role, but the real credit belongs to Paul Levesque. The man better known as Triple H was the driving force behind the creation of NXT and the founding of WWE’s Performance Center. He’s not alone in this, but much of what NXT has produced could not have been possible without Triple H’s vision and determination to make it happen.
Our recent review of the book NXT: The Future is Now went more in depth, but the short version is that Triple H’s need to find out where their future talent would come from helped him along the path to creating what we now know as NXT. The book itself is an excellent read and provides a truly special behind the scenes look at the way NXT developed. With the help of William Regal, Matt Bloom, and others, Triple H was able to cultivate talent from outside of the WWE within NXT and make them ready for the big time.
An Indie Beginning
While NXT has also helped WWE lay the foundation for creating stars from the ground up, it is the big name signings that have made it something truly special in the last few years. If you look at the names currently in NXT and the ones that have transitioned to the main roster, it reads like a who’s who of indie wrestling throughout the last decade. The most obvious name associated with the independent scene would be AJ Styles. While AJ didn’t come through NXT, it could easily be argued that his arrival in WWE could not have happened without NXT breaking down barriers in the years before he got there.
The first-ever NXT Champion was Seth Rollins, but some fans still remember him by the name he went by in Ring of Honor and on the independent scene, Tyler Black. Before even making it to WWE’s then-developmental promotion FCW, Rollins made his name in ROH and even in the indiest of indies, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla. As Tyler Black, he won the PWG World Tag Team Championship with Jimmy Jacobs. In ROH, that team also captured the ROH World Tag Team Championship on two occasions.
Tyler Black’s most memorable claim to fame on the independent scene was his 210-day reign as the Ring of Honor World Champion. The ROH World Championship is not a fickle title like the TNA World Championship or WWE’s World Heavyweight Championship from the old days of the brand split. Since its creation in 2002, the title has only been held by 22 different men and only three of those have held it more than once. While John Cena boasts about being a 16-time WWE Champion, Adam Cole is leading the pack in Ring of Honor as a 3-time ROH World Champion.
Some other names to have held the ROH World Championship include Austin Aries, Jamie Noble, Samoa Joe, Daniel Bryan (then Bryan Danielson), Nigel McGuinness, Kevin Owens (then Kevin Steen), Roderick Strong, and CM Punk. By becoming the first NXT Champion, Seth Rollins set the standard within the brand for the level of skill and expertise that was expected from those who captured the NXT Championship. The brand was just getting started.
Signing Indie Darlings
While the next two NXT Champions were talents that started within WWE, Bo Dallas and Big E Langston, every single other champion first made their mark on the independent scene. Adrian Neville, the current King of the Cruiserweights and WWE Cruiserweight Champion, honed his skills as Pac in PWG, TNA, ROH, Chikara, Dragon Gate, and NJPW before coming to the NXT and winning the NXT Championship at the first live event ever streamed on the WWE Network, NXT Arrival. Now, Neville is the face of WWE’s Cruiserweight Division and their weekly show 205 Live.
After Neville came Sami Zayn who had made his mark in PWG, Chikara, ROH, Dragon Gate, DDT Pro-Wrestling, and Evolve before making his way to NXT. The alleged former luchador was a 2-time PWG World Champion, 5-time PWG Tag Team Champion, ROH Tag Team Champion, and ROH Television Champion. Zayn’s longtime friend turned rival turned friend turned rival Kevin Owens was the next man to take the NXT Championship, and the string of indie darlings continued.
Since the brand launched in 2012, the big names to come through NXT have included Cesaro (Claudio Castagnoli), Seth Rollins (Tyler Black), Dean Ambrose (Jon Moxley), Xavier Woods (Austin Creed), Adrian Neville (Pac), Sami Zayn (allegedly El Generico), Kevin Owens (Kevin Steen), Finn Balor (Prince Devitt), Hideo Itami (KENTA), Apollo Crews (Uhaa Nation), Samoa Joe, Asuka (Kana), Shinsuke Nakamura, Austin Aries, Andrade “Cien” Almas (La Sombra), Bobby Roode, Ember Moon (Athena), Tommaso Ciampa, Johnny Gargano, Cedric Alexander, Rich Swann, Noam Dar, TM-61 (TMDK), Roderick Strong, Eric Young, Kassius Ohno (Chris Hero), Killian Dain (Big Damo), Aleister Black (Tommy End), and surely others I have managed to forget to mention.
Is NXT killing the indies?
Now to the question that some people like to throw out. The simple answer is no. The indies are fine, and nothing NXT can do will make them disappear. In reality, independent wrestling is thriving today. However, there’s a thread of truth in this extreme question. Starting with NXT, WWE has started to sign big name competitors but taken a good bit of time to utilize them. The current examples of this would be Kassius Ohno, Roderick Strong, and Aleister Black who are just barely getting some decent exposure in NXT.
This trend of signing talents continued when the WWE hosted the United Kingdom Championship Tournament. While they ended up signing several of the competitors for use in their upcoming weekly show based in the UK and have used Tyler Bate, Pete Dunne, and some others frequently in NXT, many of the men from that special haven’t been seen on television since. When WWE snags these talents, they tend to sign them to smaller deals that allow them to work a few independent promotions that WWE has good relations with, but it restricts them from going anywhere WWE doesn’t want them.
This topic isn’t exactly a new one. Back when RealSport spoke to Impact Wrestling’s Josh Mathews in March, he offered some of his own opinions on how WWE’s act of signing and then not utilizing talent is affecting the industry as a whole.
“Well, that seems to be what’s going on in the UK now, right? They’re signing these guys to low-money deals, and they can’t go do anything else. I think that’s the performer’s- not fault because if you wanna work for WWE and that’s your ultimate goal, and you have a contract, and their letterhead is on top of it, and you sign it, you think that that’s it. As a kid, when I was 19 or 20, I would’ve done anything for the company. I would’ve gone and mopped the floors to say that I draw a paycheck from that company. So if that’s their ultimate goal, then that’s for them to decide. But yeah I do think it’s having somewhat of an effect, because you’re looked at as someone who may be devaluing yourself, or you may think look I’ve got the door open I’m ready to get in there, and I’m gonna become the next John Cena.”
While WWE’s actions by signing talent to NXT and for their upcoming UK program have put a strain on the independent scene in some ways, the plethora of talent throughout the industry today makes everyone replaceable. Even the most special talents can be replaced. That doesn’t mean the next person is the embodiment of what was lost, but that anyone’s spot can be filled by another.
The Future of NXT & The Indies
As frustrating as it can be to know talents like Kassius Ohno and Aleister Black aren’t yet being fully utilized by NXT, it’s comforting to know that the brand will be safe when current stars like Bobby Roode inevitably move on to the main roster. So many stars have come and gone, but it always means there’s an opportunity for someone else to shine. NXT’s roster is packed, but the overload isn’t all bad.
Meanwhile, the indies are thriving despite the loss of longtime staples such as AJ Styles and Kevin Owens. New names are making their mark, and even former WWE superstars like Cody Rhodes and John Morrison have revitalized their careers on the independent scene. As much as it tends to look like WWE is hoarding talent, rest assured that there’s no shortage of it. NJPW lost AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura, but they’re thriving. Ring of Honor lost Roderick Strong, but they’re thriving.
In a few months, we’ll probably be talking about how Ring of Honor will cope with the loss of Adam Cole. Sometime after that, we might be discussing the effect that Jay Lethal signing with WWE could have. Hopefully, we’ll eventually be talking about NJPW’s reaction to the loss of Kenny Omega and The Cleaner’s monumental arrival in NXT or on the main roster. We’ve been here before, and we’ll be here again. Don’t worry too much about WWE’s talent acquisition. Instead, be thankful that we live in an era so saturated with amazing wrestling.