10 Ways WWE Is Completely Unrecognisable From Just One Year Ago
5. NXT On USA
WWE were thinking about nothing but quashing the competition when they moved NXT to USA Network to tackle All Elite Wrestling's new TNT vehicle Dynamite in October 2019. A byproduct of their bulldozer attempt was the initial marginalisation of AEW as a tertiary concern too. The message they had inadvertently sent was that this company was only a rival for the C-Show rather than Raw or SmackDown. Instead, Dynamite (on its best day an A-Show in nearly every sense of the word) has largely asserted its authority on WWE's most prestigious product and re-marginalised it to lesser than its old form.
Vince McMahon's plan has backfired, and Triple H's product has be made to suffer.
A year ago, NXT was, as a storytelling company at least, still doing what it tries to do better than anybody else today. The build up to TakeOver: New York was stellar, the event somehow surpassed it and life as the niche Network show seemed to service the black-and-gold brand brilliantly. It's still all of those things, but has to face a weekly ratings battering and the same scrutiny its Wednesday rival did on launch. The times, if not the numbers, are still a changin'.
And as for two of NXT's biggest former stars...