10 Times WWE Didn’t Learn Their Lesson
3. NXT Season 2
The original incarnation of NXT was unfathomably counterproductive.
Its eight Rookies, through designation alone, were depicted as daydreaming greenhorns. They weren't introduced via vignettes, establishing them as larger than life superstars before they even stepped through the curtain. Instead, they were just grateful for the opportunity. Despite genuine developmental experience, years in the case of some, they were positioned, more or less, as Tough Enough contestants.
They were set up to fail in a monkey/typewriter approach to star creation, most infamously on the Talk To Talk challenges in which they were tasked with discussing inane themes with no relevance to wrestling. While this was the point - those who succeeded had proven they could handle the sometimes unpredictable nature of live TV - the damage done was fairly major. The likes of Michael Tarver were stigmatised as panic-stricken goofs.
What's even dafter is that, in conjunction with season 2, in which the challenges became even more embarrassing, WWE ran the Nexus angle - which was enterprisingly conceived as a way of explaining away idiocy and frivolity of the first season.
No lessons were learnt; instead, guys like Eli Cottonwood were marched out to the ring, forever typecasting themselves as dimwits in the process.