10 Wrestlers That Made Fans Change The Channel
5. Rhea Ripley (2019)
As good as it got for NXT in the first (and only?) year of the Wednesday Night War with AEW, the last live episode of 2019 saw the black-and-gold brand batting back the idea that only main roster involvement could draw against Dynamite. This, frustratingly, was achieved thanks to careful and patient longterm booking to go along with banger matches. They still know how to do this, yet they choose not to.
Rhea Ripley had arrived on the brand well before the show was on USA or two hours long, unafraid of the dominant Shayna Baszler. Unlucky not to beat her outright in her formal debut, some enormous success over Survivor Series weekend made her challenge inevitable and her victory undeniable.
The pair tore it up in an exhilarating headliner, all while AEW made one of their only major missteps thus far on the other side. People weren't as interested in the original version of the Dark Order popping fake blood in the mouths of the Young Bucks when they could see the 'Queen Of Spades' and 'The Nightmare' knocking seven shades out of each other for one of the industry's most prestigious prizes. The 112,000 difference (NXT drew 795,000 to AEW's 693,000) between the two shows has only been topped by WWE's developmental once ever since.