10 Best WWE NXT Moments Since Moving To USA Network

While Santos Escobar’s brilliance as a heel Cruiserweight Champion is only now being capitalised on, he’s been a major highlight whenever he’s appeared on NXT television these last few months. It’s unfortunate that NXT’s best heel turn in years came in a tournament tainted by WWE’s real cruelties.

Following the release and tearful Twitter video of Drake Maverick, a participant in the interim Cruiserweight Championship tournament, and the decision to incorporate his distress into the remaining matches he had left, the event was made uncomfortable to watch. Despite our collective delight that Maverick kept his job, it happening because of a storyline felt distasteful.

However, WWE found a perfect way to get some heat on a character through it, getting genuine power from the sudden turn of El Hijo Del Fantasma onto Maverick. Unmasking and renaming himself as Santos Escobar, bringing out his new associates Raul Mendoza and Joaquin Wilde and choosing to dominate the Cruiserweight division like a mob boss immediately invigorated interest in the division and the story.

While a potential TakeOver match with Maverick never happened and he hasn’t been pushed as hard as he should, Escobar’s turn is one of the great successes of modern NXT.