10 NXT Stars WWE Let Slip Right Through Their Fingers
3. Maxine
The all-women third season of NXT was excellent in theory, but awful in execution. WWE wasted no time in making a mockery of the program by having commentators Michael Cole and Josh Mathews blatantly point out how horrible it was. The girls tried their best to take the "competition" as seriously as possible, but it was just one giant train wreck.
AJ was relatable, Naomi was athletic, Aksana was exotic, Jamie was well-spoken, and Kaitlyn was drop-dead gorgeous. Meanwhile, Maxine was all of those things and was the only one of the six to make an actual effort to elicit heat. Despite that, she was eliminated early on, though she eventually resurfaced on the fifth season of NXT, entitled 'Redemption'.
Her love triangle storyline with Johnny Curtis and Derrick Bateman was one of the best things going in WWE at the time, yet no one knew about it. NXT was the perfect platform for her to showcase her skills as an actor. She was a pretty passable wrestler to boot, meaning she wouldn't have been a good fit for the main roster's Divas division back then.
She quit the company in June 2012 and has since been absolutely killing it as Catrina in Lucha Underground. Thankfully, she heeded her mentor Dusty Rhodes' advice by staying in the entertainment business. She wouldn't have had to wrestle in WWE but rather serve as a general manager as she at one point pitched to management (but was declined).