It feels like only yesterday that I was singing the praises and debating the possibilities for WWE NXT.
But in reality, it was the end of February.
That’s not actually so long a time, but it’s long enough that the show already pretty much has one foot in the grave. The growing pains that many of us hoped the show would overcome actually turned out to be literal growing pains: they grew and grew and ended up overpowering the show. This is a list of potential flaws from the column I wrote after watching that first episode:
“Is there actually a real training component to the show? How exactly is the winner decided “in universe“? Why exactly are the mentors serving as mentors? And how exactly are they mentoring by serving as valets, or by using rookies as valets? Will the rookies be valeting their mentors to Raw and Smackdown, or will this just exist in an NXT bubble until the winner moves forward to a main roster? And so on. The set-up is murky when compared to what was initially described, and if it’s not clarified quickly, the show will quickly start to come off like an episode of Superstars where the job guys can win.â€
Well, the set up never really got any less murky. There were attempts to clarify the rules and explain how eliminations would be decided, but it seemed like each week the bulk of the rules would change. And if the rules didn’t change, then the format would change. The show very quickly went from what felt like an old school wrestling show to something that at times felt like an all-male Diva search competition with jobber matches in between. Even as recently as the last 2 weeks, when the eliminations actually started occurring, the rules and format got switched up, as “WWE management†cut an additional two contestants out of the blue, and the Pros showed up onstage to watch and grade the rookies. This was a nice change, since after about a month most of the pros stopped showing up. Not that they did much to show how the rookies were learning from the pros to begin with; outside of the occasional in pep talk the majority of the pros were engaged in some form of rivalry with their rookies. The ones that didn’t just gave them the aforementioned occasional pep talk. The only ones with any sort of unique relationship were Wade Barrett and Chris Jericho, but despite Jericho constantly putting him over anytime he got within earshot of the announce table, and despite Barrett being the closest thing to a complete package the show has, Barrett began to start coming off more like the new Lance Cade, especially after eating a spear from Edge every time he tried to help Jericho beat him down on Smackdown. Fortunately, those occasions were few and far between, because NXT tended to exist in the predicted bubble.
Yes, the rookies made rare appearances on Raw and Smackdown, but there’s been no rhyme or reason to it. Daniel Bryan got his first big win in a Raw tag match, but so what? By that point the man had a win loss record of 0 and 157, and the NXT show was spending 30 of its 60 minutes watching the rookies struggle with beer kegs and cups of soda. So why would anyone watching Monday Night Raw care when one of them shows up?
I really don’t think I need to go that far into the strange bizarre push of Daniel Bryan. Or Bryan Danielson. Or whatever name they have him using this week. We all know the deal. For a show that started off looking like it was tailor made for the guy, complete with a ready-made hot feud with the Miz, it quickly sent him down the path of the losing streak gimmick, a gimmick that only works in the rarest of circumstances, usually when the recipient is someone the audience already looks upon as a sympathetic figure they can get behind. A born loser, if you will. That’s why the gimmick worked with guys like Barry Horowitz and Mikey Whipwreck. But when you bring a new wrestler in and start things off by playing off his cult following and “best in the world†moniker, and assigning him the pro most of the audience wants to see get smacked in the face? You create a guy who people want to see kick ass, not kicking ass. Hold off on that for too long, and that adds up to people no longer caring.
Now, none of this falls at the feet of the NXT rookies. With the possible exception of Darren Young, they all have clear upsides should they get used in the main roster. Even Daniel Tarver, who initially fell through the cracks as the show began, has a visible upside thanks to the whiny tough guy character he took on half way through the season. But none of them seem to have really improved in ring since the start of the show, and sprinting towards the finish line isn’t going to help them in that regard.
From what I understand, the idea now is to get through “season one” so that “season two” can be completed before the show loses it’s home on SyFy. Minor criticisms such as the one in my last paragraph aside, this is a good thing. Despite still having a tendency to drop things from episode to episode (Daniel Bryan apparently had gone back to being Daniel Bryan, for example, a mere week after being eliminated and announcing he still has a future as Bryan Danielson), finally starting the eliminations has given the show visible stakes, and Daniel Bryan has returned to the spotlight, despite elimination, via an excellent in ring promo and attack on his harshest critic, announcer Michael Cole, that was replayed more than anything else on that weeks show.
It’s a baby step, but it’s a step.
Maybe the growing pains can actually turn out to have just been regular old growing pains, and “season two” can actually fulfill the promise of the NXT concept. Because awkwardly executed as the show has been, the concept has potential, and junking it because of creative indecisiveness would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. A good second season with even a minor ratings upswing could maybe even help the show find a new home, and next chapter.
