It's impossible to talk about NXT without mentioning the amazing talent that's worked for the brand. Apollo Crews, Samoa Joe, Sami Zayn, Sasha Banks, Kevin Owens, Charlotte, Hideo Itami, Bayley, Kalisto, Neville, Becky Lynch, and current champion Finn Balor have produced matches that stand beside - and often completely overshadow - anything that the main roster produces. Those men and women will (and in some cases, already do) produce the same kind of work on the main roster, if allowed to do so. Still, those are only a handful of workers, and with the exception of Charlotte, they all have one thing in common - they developed their skills elsewhere. Most of them, especially the men, were considered among the most talented wrestlers in the world before ever being signed... and the rest of NXT's roster is less impressive. WWE has made much of its state-of-the-art Performance Center in Orlando, which trains wrestlers for the NXT brand, but the Performance Center/NXT system has yet to create any capable workers beyond Charlotte and Chad Gable. Men like Enzo Amore and Baron Corbin, who were trained from scratch by WWE, aren't known for their in-ring abilities, while experienced workers like Blake and Murphy or Dash and Dawson haven't managed to find their personalities. WWE has the money to sign the world's best talent, but their ability to create it is still unproven.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
