10 Times Wrestling Promotions Came Back From The Dead
6. NXT - 2013
It's dead.
NXT was almost literally dead; a dot com concern in the U.S., the continuing obligation to pump out content for international broadcasters manifested in the bizarre cult wonder that was Redemption: an endless show on which its performers were marooned and desperate to escape in a meta thrill. Think RETRIBUTION and their talk of the Performance Center, only good and actually funny. Redemption followed three seasons of profoundly counterproductive game show fare that framed the talent as hapless lambs to the slaughter of Michael Cole's guffaws. Remember what that little d*ckweed looked like in 1997, and cry.
It's alive!
Triple H reimagined the brand as a serious developmental programme, and it was so awesome in its pomp. Feel-good where the old NXT was a cat-kicking as impactful as Katsuyori Shibata's shin-to-back squelchers, the formula was legitimately life-affirming for the disenfranchised and indeed any pro wrestling fan: NXT booked babyfaces that radiated genuine babyface qualities, had the deck stacked against them, and then overcame in state-of-the-art classics waged in the cauldron of Full Sail University.
NXT was near-perfect because it intersected the two formative modes of pro wrestling fandom: the longing for a hero, and the appreciation of advanced craft.