10 Wrestling Storylines That Wasted Incredible Premises
7. NXT Invades The Main Roster
The premise:
A storyline dreamt up by fans the very second NXT stood in awesome contrast to the main roster, the old philosophies that once divided Triple H and Vince McMahon would have made for incredible long-term storytelling. And we got it, ahead of last year's Survivor Series: Adam Cole defeated Daniel Bryan in a tremendous SmackDown main event to signal NXT's intention to emerge as the best, most dominant brand. WWE had positioned itself very well to tell the impossible story: an epic inter-promotional war entirely unaffected by the politics and sad flexing that damned virtually every other that had come before.
The waste:
This all unfolded in parallel with WarGames, which did not help no matter how subtly Tommaso Ciampa cast an eye towards "Goldie" when NXT presented an uneasy united front. That plot hole was a goatse, and the storytelling elsewhere was as nonexistent as the logic; beyond Seth Rollins and Kevin Owens, no inner conflict was explored, no jumps, swerves or turns teased. The Street Profits wore red - even though they'd worn yellow for 97% of their run - and not once was this questioned. They were Red Team!
WWE had the resources and full authorial control to tell an intricate, suspenseful saga with endless narrative permutations and match combinations, and they stuck a load of people in t-shirts and booked them in bland, unfocused brawls.