The Rise Of Triple H | Wrestling Timelines
April 5, 2019 - The Peak And The First Crack
In quite the irony, Levesque’s greatest night at the helm of NXT obscures a flaw that will drive his decline before the year is out.
He presents NXT TakeOver: New York from the Barclays Center. The show is incredible, and is instantly received as one of the very best events in company history. And, through the sheer lack of anything remotely bad or even mediocre, the show might be the very best. The argument can be made.
Before the ratings system is completely ignored as a barometer of quality, Dave Meltzer awarding *****½ to the Johnny Gargano Vs. Adam Cole main event really means something. While Cole Vs. Gargano is great, there's a whiff of excess to it that will become more pronounced as 2019 unfolds.
It’s a loud, emotional triumph of a night, but what is that reflective of, really?
14 wrestlers appear on the main card. Of those 14, just one wrestler - Bianca Belair - is a built from scratch product of the Performance Center. The Velveteen Dream is close to it, having barely done anything on a less glamorous indie circuit, but the overwhelming majority of wrestlers on the TakeOver card had arrived in WWE in their final form as stars. Legendary hipster indie outfit Pro Wrestling Guerrilla - unaffiliated with WWE - is a more effective developmental pipeline than the Performance Center.
If you’re a fan, this is great. If you’re Vince McMahon, or a shareholder, you might be wondering what the point of the Performance Center is.
NXT is a glorified super-indie which isn’t enormously profitable in and of itself. This is a problem, now, since - for the first time in close to two decades - a competitor has emerged to compete with the hardcore fan. Triple H will refer to this competitor, All Elite Wrestling, as a “pissant company” the very next night.