10 WWE NXT Wrestlers Who Didn't Succeed Until Turning Heel
All it took for these ten talents was turning on the crowd to be successful.
It's amazing what a heel turn can do to revitalize someone's career and get them on the proper path to super stardom, especially in NXT.
Down in developmental, it's perfectly acceptable for wrestlers to flounder for a bit while they try to find who they are. It isn't uncommon for a character to be miscast when they first debut, and since NXT fans can see through a fake gimmick, it doesn't take long for them to let their dissatisfaction with that wrestler be heard.
Once that up-and-comers flips the switch, however, it's a whole new ballgame. They could go from not competing on a TakeOver special at all to contending for and/or winning gold in the main event of one. Oftentimes, they'll ride that momentum all the way to WWE's main roster, leaving fans to wonder whether they would have ever gotten there at all had it not been for that heel turn.
NXT fans have witnessed a whole bunch of exceptional heel turns dating back to the early days of the brand and are still seeing them today. The following ten rank up there as being the best for what they did for that individual's blossoming career.
10. Io Shirai
Unlike some other stars featured a little later on this list, Io Shirai wasn't doing too bad for herself in NXT when she first started out. After all, she was the runner-up in the 2018 Mae Young Classic and competed for the NXT Women's Championship on back-to-back TakeOver specials, though it felt like she wasn't living up to her full potential as one of the best women's wrestlers in the world.
Her string of losses to Shayna Baszler ultimately led to her turning on her friend Candice LeRae in shocking fashion on the June 26 episode of NXT. It was perfectly logical yet something most fans didn't see coming. As soon as Shirai was done laying waste to her former friend, it was obvious that a major weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
Mere weeks later, The Genius of the Sky debuted an updated entrance to go along with her all-new attitude. The black leather completed her beautiful-yet-dangerous look and made her an immediate force in the NXT women's division. Even though her English still needs work, her heinous actions inside the ring have largely done the talking for her.
Shirai had her best NXT match to date at TakeOver: Toronto II against LeRae, with the two stealing the show and putting on an absolute clinic. With that win, she should be back in contention for the NXT Women's Championship sooner rather than later.