Ranking WWE's First Ever NXT Class - From Worst To Best
13. Paige
The first ever NXT Women's Champion and youngest ever WWE Divas Champion was an instant hit having left the UK scene for US soil, building on a career longer than was legal before joined up with the market leader in 2012. Arriving with reps and getting even more via Florida Championship Wrestling through to the NXT rebrand, when the time came for the black-and-gold brand to get its first female titleholder, she was the perfect choice.
'The Anti-Diva' was a telling nickname for the time, with the persona seemingly as much about Triple H attempting to distinguish his female wrestlers from the state of play on the main roster. This was as much show as tell in 2014 when Paige and Emma used the elevated stage of an "Arrival" Network special to contest one of the best WWE women's matches ever up to that point.
Paige was fast-tracked from there to a Raw and SmackDown run with more mixed results. Personal and professional priorities clashed, and a brutally unlucky injury record resulted in a bumpy four year stint coming to an end with an early retirement in 2018. After a swing as an authority figure and manager, she ended up leaving the company, but surprisingly turned up in All Elite Wrestling in 2022. Another so-so run did at least generate one enormously cathartic home nation victory in front of the company's biggest ever crowd at Wembley Stadium, kicking off a brief reign as AEW Women's Champion.
It's not been the easiest of roads, but she paved enough of it herself to at least get the chance to make the journey.