10 Bad Habits WWE Must Kick In 2017
8. Premature NXT Call-Ups
2016 saw close to 20 wrestlers make their way from NXT to the main roster. Some, like Finn Balor and American Alpha have looked immediately at home on the bigger stage. Balor was unfortunately struck down by injury as soon as he reached his zenith, but him and Alpha have looked great on Raw and SmackDown, and the likes of Alexa Bliss and Baron Corbin are really starting to settle in too.
The company’s other call-ups haven’t gone quite as smoothly, however. The Brand Split necessitated a swathe of new faces, and this panic to fill airtime saw a number of unseasoned NXT workers make their way to Raw and SmackDown. Wrestlers like Nia Jax, Carmella, and Mojo Rawley didn’t look like the finished article at Full Sail University, let alone on the main roster, and they have floundered as a result.
WWE’s Performance Center is widely regarded as the best finishing school in the business, but these premature call-ups only hamper the performers’ chances of succeeding. It’s hard to recover from a bad start, and while the names listed above have all made gradual improvements, they’d have certainly arrived with more impact had they been allowed to stay in NXT for a year or two longer.