12 Ups And 15 Downs For WWE In 2016

12. Staying In ‘Developmental’

Samoa Joe
WWE.com

The moment that WWE launched its brand split this summer, fans began speculating over who would get called up from NXT to fill out the rosters. After all, it was clear that the WWE main roster was too thin on star power to carry two shows.

We saw acts like Finn Balor, American Alpha, Apollo Crews, Bayley and Nia Jax get the call-up, but conspicuous by their absence were several other talented performers who closed out 2016 still in WWE’s “developmental” territory. Stars like Samoa Joe, Shinsuke Nakamura, Austin Aries, Asuka and Bobby Roode all could likely fit right in right away on Raw or SmackDown rather than toiling away with the Drifter and Buddy Murphy.

Don’t get it wrong, there’s value to keeping NXT strong as a third brand, but after seeing how AJ Styles excelled in 2016 on the main roster, there should have been at least some consideration given to some of these established stars moving up to the main roster at some point last year.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.