There's a great argument that says that the "lead babyface" in NXT is the brand itself, which means that no one performer is more important than the NXT product as a whole. I'll argue that we're actually about to see an era where Finn Balor being the NXT Champion and thus the "lead babyface" is about to occur, and in Balor having no slick corporate catchphrases or movie roles is actually more compelling than paint-by-numbers babyface Cena. NXT lacking a very hackneyed sort of "good guy" presence at the top of the brand will likely make NXT quite different. In the story not always having an expected happy ending and the top babyface maybe being the kind of guy who will die nobly on his shield, it's actually a far more dramatic presentation.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.