5 Reasons NXT Is NOT Better Than WWE (It Just Feels Like It Is)

5. They Can Finish A Story

What NXT has going for it that the rest of WWE programming does not is the very thing that makes it feel so special: NXT stories can end. The entire reason NXT is there, its whole purpose, is to get the newest WWE signings ready for television. That's what it's for. Either to train up wrestlers from scratch, or to give experienced independent wrestlers the chance learn the finer details that go into turning live wrestling into a TV show. Either way, when angles are put together and shows written, the creative team is able to work towards a story that will have a definitive conclusion. Look at the main event of Evolution. The reason the main event was so satisfying was because the whole story could be built around the careers of Adrian Neville and Sami Zayn without having to worry about the repercussions for those characters. What happens to Adrian Neville now that he's lost his precious title? How can you keep that character strong? Well, it doesn't matter, because he's probably going to get called up to the main roster soon. What about when Sami Zayn loses his title? We, the audience, have spent months invested in his story to claim the gold and to finally "win the big one". When he loses his championship, what can the creative team do to make us care about him getting it back? Well, they don't have to, because he'll get called up to WWE TV. It's consequence-free storytelling. Here's another example, let's compare the years of two tag teams: The Ascension vs The Usos. First, The Ascension. They were the first team to win the NXT Tag Team Championships and defended them for months with great success. They then dropped the titles to another tag team, shifted into a program with Finn Balor and Hideo Itami, and now they're getting called up to the main roster. One story straight into the next, no harm done. Now, The Usos. They also won Tag Team gold, and successfully defended their titles at the Wrestlemania XXX pre-show, were in a great program with the Wyatt Family before losing their titles. Now what? While The Ascension got to wash their hands of the loss and move up into the main roster, The Usos have nowhere else to go. They've had to keep trying to win the titles back and failing, making the team look desperate and weak, and now it all feels rather stale. It's the staleness of consequences. It's something wrestling has had to deal with for many, many years. And they will, over time, continue to deal with it. Soon, there will be a new idea or a fresh angle. There always is. But right now, NXT can get away with telling a full story, with a concrete beginning, middle and end, and it's making people think that the problem is simply that NXT is trying harder. Or that WWE writers are lazy. When in fact, having the foresight to keep an aspect of a story untold so it can be saved for later is an extremely difficult task that WWE writers have managed to achieve for many years. Well, sometimes.