10 Wrestlers Who've Suffered Most From The WWE Brand Split
5. Neville
Many assumed that Neville would become one of the newly-announced Raw Cruiserweight Division’s cornerstones when it was announced. He’d be a known quantity among a division of newcomers, and while he hadn’t come close to recreating his NXT success on the main roster, he remains one of WWE’s most exciting wrestlers. Neville would be a natural fit in the Cruiserweight Division, and building him up would be an ideal way to hype its September debut, but WWE have done nothing with Neville since returning from injury.
Instead of attempting to promote the high-flying Geordie, WWE have reduced him to pointless television matches with Curtis Axel. He had a solid Universal Title Tournament match with Kevin Owens this week, but that’s the extent of his accomplishments so far. Neville’s role at the moment is “flashy guy who wrestles,” and his character development is non-existent.
It’s not like Neville was well-presented before the Brand Split, but he’s continued to slide since being sent to Raw. Instead of going down the obvious road of using him to hype promote the upcoming Cruiserweight revival, WWE appear to have thrust him in a tag team with Sami Zayn, another former NXT Champion who’s suffered greatly since the Split. Neville’s high-octane matches should be one of Raw’s weekly highlights: instead, it’s a coin flip as to whether he’ll even appear or not.