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

2. A Small Roster

There's a common belief going around that the WWE roster lacks depth. It comes up again and again, even in Stone Cold's podcast with Vince McMahon recently. It doesn't though. It has plenty of depth. The WWE has so much depth that it is weighing down the whole product. If you were to conduct a poll, not on the internet but at an actual WWE event, and ask fans who their favourite wrestler is, you would get a strange response. John Cena's placing on the list would depend on what city you're in, so let's remove him from the equation. He would win a great deal of the time, but that's fine. Now that we've removed him, who wins? Honestly, it's near-impossible to tell without actually conducting the poll. And even if you did, it would surely vary night to night. Conceivably, there 7 guys who could win: Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose, Daniel Bryan, Seth Rollins, Bray Wyatt, Dolph Ziggler, Randy Orton. And that's not including the "special attractions" Brock Lesnar, The Rock or Undertaker, who would all make the list. And the lower-card guys with their loyal fan base like Cesaro and Damien Sandow. The result is an alarming lack of focus. There are too many wrestlers that need protected. Take the TLC main event match of Dean Ambrose vs Bray Wyatt again. The match had to rely on a gimmick finish that had NXT fans' eyes rolling. You wouldn't see something as silly as a TV monitor explode on an NXT show. That's right, because NXT doesn't need to protect the loser as much as WWE does. It was the same at Hell In A Cell when Ambrose met Seth Rollins. That was arguably the hottest feud of the year, but when it came down to it the ending of the match was rather tame as the loser needed to be protected from the loss. But what else could they do? Risk hurting Dean Ambrose's popularity by having him take a pin-fall? Risk Seth Rollins' believability as the Money in the Bank briefcase holder with him losing? Leave Bray Wyatt having to talk his way out of another loss? It's back to the idea of consequence-free story telling again. No wonder WWE Creative tries to find a middle-ground. With NXT however, the roster is small enough that they can truly focus. Evolution was arguably about two men: Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens. Itami and Balor were given a prominent spot in the mid-card, but a few guys missed out, and that was fine. They weren't really missed. Charlotte and Sasha Banks had a great match for the NXT Women's Championship which was extremely satisfying, even though Bayley was nowhere to be seen. And Bayley is fantastic. So why not focus in WWE? Why not use some of these almost-stars to make one or two out-and-out stars? Well, because each of these guys are making WWE money right now. Which leads us to...