3. NXT Debuts
Last year, fans were treated to the WWE debuts of Paige and Rusev on the Raw After WrestleMania. Both made an immediate impact in WWE and are integral players one year later. So it hopefully bodes well for two NXT talents who got the call Monday night: Adrian Neville and Kalisto. Kalisto teamed with his former NXT Tag Team Champion partner Sin Cara, bringing their Lucha Dragons team to WWE and immediately bolstering the tag ranks. WWE let Kalisto shine, with the high-flier hitting a backflip off Cesaros shoulders and twisting and spinning around him into a head-scissors. The super-smart fans were hip to Kalisto and were completely into him, and JBL even noted that the Lucha Dragons had knocked off their opponents in the eight-man tag match, the Ascension, for the NXT tag titles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0QN0YAQYWk Neville apparently lost his first name in the call-up, but he still got to wow fans as well, hitting a few rapid-fire spots on Curtis Axel before finishing him with the eye-popping Red Arrow. It will be interesting to see how WWE treats Neville, as he is smaller in stature, but is built pretty well and probably is stronger than several wrestlers who are much taller. Overall, it was a good night for the NXT call-ups. If they have as good of a first year as Paige and Rusev, they will be just fine.
Scott Carlson
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.
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