NXT has been WWE's developmental territory since 2012, but the name first came into use two years earlier. When WWE decided to end the revived ECW brand in early 2010, they filled the hour-long slot on SyFy with NXT - a show that was supposed to be part in-ring action, part reality-based competition, and all focused on finding WWE's next major stars. The format of the show saw a "rookie" - one of the developmental wrestlers from Florida Championship Wrestling - team with a WWE main roster "pro," with eliminations leaving one rookie as the winner. Fans were excited for the debut of independent star Bryan Danielson, but they saw his pairing with The Miz as a disrespectful sign of WWE flexing its muscle. That wasn't the worst of it, though - the show was complete nonsense, with wrestlers judged as much on ridiculous contests (like carrying a keg or cutting a 30-second promo on a given word) as their actual capabilities. There were five seasons of this format - with the final one lasting for well over a year - before WWE ended the concept and put the letters to better use.
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
