At some point in the very near future, bad guys who do bad things to good people are going to hold the NXT Championship and the NXT Tag belts, too. Ever since they 2002 heyday of Triple H has WWE ever had heels on top that inspire fans to hold grudges against their excellence. In heel Samoa Joe and The Mechanics holding the top championships, babyfaces competing for said championships will not just be winning matches in dethroning them, they'll be "righting the wrongs of the NXT Universe." By comparison, main roster WWE Champion Seth Rollins is presented as an annoying dude who is a chickens**t pawn of The Authority. Even deeper, the main roster doesn't really know what to do with guys who excel in grudge match-style feuds, as the Dean Ambroses, Bray Wyatts and Kevin Owenses of the world are just kinda *there*, and the babyfaces who need grudge-match feuds to get over like Cesaro, Neville and more are suffering because of it. Expect that when evil Samoa Joe becomes NXT Champion for the differences between NXT and WWE to grow exponentially. Exciting times are ahead.
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.
