Ranking The Success Of Every WWE Star To Debut In The Crowd At NXT TakeOver

1. Asuka

Drew McIntyre NXT Crowd
WWE.com

Many fans tend to forget that Asuka made her first-ever appearance for NXT while in the front row of TakeOver: Brooklyn, likely because the commentators referred to her as Kana (her previous moniker) as well as how she was slightly overshadowed by Ric Flair and Sgt. Slaughter.

Nevertheless, she is arguably the greatest get for WWE's women's division not named Ronda Rousey in the last decade. She brought a sense of realism to women's wrestling that had never been seen in WWE before, and her long list of accolades from her time in Japan spoke for themselves.

It was apparent from the moment she debuted in NXT that she'd be an unstoppable force, and within six months, she was the NXT Women's champion. She went on to have one of the most impressive undefeated streaks in WWE history over the next two and a half years by beating every one who dared to oppose her.

Asuka's reign of dominance in NXT came to an end in September 2017 when she relinquished the gold to pursue bigger and better things on Raw. In 2018 alone, she won the inaugural women's Royal Rumble match, wrestled in the first singles match for the women at WrestleMania in over a decade, and became SmackDown Women's champion.

Although she lost a lot of steam coming into 2019 and has yet to recover, she is still far and away the biggest success story to come out of appearing in the audience at an NXT TakeOver special.

Contributor
Contributor

Since 2008, Graham has been a diehard pro wrestling fan and, in 2010, he combined his passions for WWE and writing when he joined Bleacher Report. Equipped with a master's in journalism, Graham has contributed to WhatCulture, FanSided's Daily DDT, Sports Betting Dime, and GateHouse Media. Along the way, he has conducted interviews with wrestling superstars like Chris Jericho, Edge, Goldberg, Christian, Diamond Dallas Page, Jim Ross, Adam Cole, Tessa Blanchard, Ryback, and Nick Aldis among others.