12 Times WWE Buried Itself

A show so terrible that WWE have yet to find a way of glorifying any of it beyond Wade Barrett's jokes at his own career's expense on commentary, the original incarnation of NXT replaced WWE's version of ECW and somehow made the time slot even more unbearable.

It was classic monopoly-era arrogance from Vince McMahon at the time. For all its many, many faults, "WWECW" had become a reasonable quasi-developmental show in terms of how it soft-launched wrestlers by programming them with more experienced workers. The characters were less outlandish than CW-era 2020s NXT, but a lot of the actual performers didn't really have the acting chops anyway. If WWE was rolling a dice with the re-purposed initials, it was rolling a three most weeks with ECW. By comparison, the NXT gameshow dice got thrown off the table in a huff before the game started and never picked back up.

To call it dysfunctional would be an understatement. Wrestlers were given a host of games, tasks and other non-wrestling related activities to do in order to prove their readiness for life as a WWE Superstar. Said activities were typically awful, as were the performers forced to engage with them, but the in-house spin put the blame on the people rather than the format and everyone involved was left to rot. Main roster regulars installed as "Pros" often looked disgusted to have even been included, while the "rookies" never knew what unwritten rules they might be breaking because they were changed on the fly anyway. Matt Striker was insufferable presiding over it all, mostly because he was the kicked cat getting to lash out at the few select stars even lower on the totem pole.

A nadir for talent development, it remains a remarkable achievement and a credit to the best years of the black-and-gold brand that the very initials weren't mothballed with various other all-time lows.