10 Wrestlers Who Should Have Been NXT Champion
2. Tyler Breeze
During his long tenure in NXT, Tyler Breeze worked incessantly to get his obnoxious male model character over. Through his on-screen antics and in-ring capability, Breeze gained massive popularity with the Full Sail audience and stayed in stride with some of the top stars of developmental, including Neville, Zayn, and Finn Bálor.
Despite being viewed as on-par with these guys, he never captured the NXT Championship as they did. Failing to secure the belt after several opportunities, Breeze arrived on the main roster with a whimper rather than a bang. To debut on SmackDown prior to the brand split is a damning enough indictment of what the WWE believed they had in him.
Breeze is now trying to work a second miracle, getting over a 'fashion police' gimmick with Fandango. The pairing is certainly fun, but it's highly unlikely that a former NXT Champion would have been involved in a sunburn angle. Breeze simply lacks the respect that the company affords the standard bearers of their developmental system. While it could be argued he did plenty to promote the emerging brand, he never held that one, true symbol of success in NXT.