Ranking The Success Of Every WWE Star To Debut In The Crowd At NXT TakeOver
A front row ticket to a TakeOver has resulted in a ticket to bigger and better for some stars.
It's quite amazing that in the five years NXT TakeOver specials have been around, not a single one of them has underwhelmed or left viewers with a sour taste in their mouths once they were over. The black-and-gold brand celebrated its 25th TakeOver event earlier this month and, as expected, it was nothing short of stellar.
One underrated aspect of these TakeOvers, however, is that you never know who is going to show up. The quarterly specials have hosted the debuts of Kevin Owens, Baron Corbin, Shinsuke Nakamura, Adam Cole and Aleister Black (just to name a few) over the years, but all of those arrivals happened inside the squared circle. Others have happened on these shows in the form of an appearance in the audience.
As far back as TakeOver: Unstoppable in May 2015, up-and-coming athletes have been introduced to the NXT Universe through a brief shot of them sitting front row in the crowd among the masses, giving fans a small teaser of the star power the brand has waiting in the wings to bring in and push to the top.
Some were expected, while others came as a complete surprise. Either way, all of them have made their mark on NXT and beyond since having their face shown on screen for the first time. Now let's look at who's been the most successful of the bunch based off their stints in NXT and on the main roster.
10. Kushida (TakeOver: New York)
Even with WWE's on-air product arguably worse than it's been in many years, talent from all across the world are still willing to sign with the company and attempt to make a name for themselves - or at least within the NXT system.
For nearly a decade, Kushida was a staple of New Japan Pro Wrestling's junior heavyweight division, where he reigned as the Junior Heavyweight champion and as the Junior Heavyweight tag team champion on multiple occasions. He also won the Best of the Super Juniors tournament two times.
He reached a point where he accomplished all he could in the Land of the Rising Sun and decided to take his chances by coming over to NXT. There were rumblings of him signing with the black-and-gold brand as early as December 2018, and shortly after Wrestle Kingdom 13, he announced his departure from NJPW.
It took some time, but he finally arrived in NXT at TakeOver: New York over WrestleMania weekend when he appeared in the crowd. The signing was actually announced by the company earlier that day on WWE.com, but he received a great reaction from the fans in attendance nonetheless.
Seeing as how he is still relatively new in NXT, it's too early to tell how high his ceiling will be, but with wins over Kassius Ohno and Drew Gulak, he's already off to a strong start.