Why Triple H May Not Take Over WWE From Vince McMahon
He worked us all into thinking NXT was a renegade offshoot, which spoke to how incredible the job he had done was. Meticulously-plotted chases; dominant title runs worthy of the bastardised "epic" designation; a soulful meritocracy of real, earned arc progression fused with scintillating, state of the art in-ring: NXT was near-perfect fan service. And then it concentrated almost entirely on that last component, abandoning the heart it still ironically crowed about, to build TakeOver as the epicentre of wrestling excellence. To get there, NXT's booking barely tried, succumbing to tropes and formula, the byproduct of which saw NXT only generate real buzz over five of 365 days. This lack of real episodic intrigue was dwarfed by the rise in the west of New Japan Pro Wrestling and the various elements that would eventually converge to create All Elite Wrestling.
When AEW formed, and NXT battled it head-to-head, this emerging counter-narrative was quickly realised. The ardent, universal love NXT once commanded has since forked. AEW's more old school-indebted ethos, of unscripted promos, long-term Mid South-inspired booking, and less-is-more policy as it pertains to physical interaction - Cody and MJF didn't touch once, Jon Moxley had to tear through the Inner Circle to get to Chris Jericho, pay-per-view clashes are only glimpsed, tantalisingly, within wild mass stable brawls - illuminated NXT's repetitive 50/50 beat-downs and interrupted promo segments.
The in-ring remained outstanding, but NXT's approach to storytelling had become tired. Some remained enamoured of NXT's solid output; others felt the acting in the main event scene had become so bad that they were expected to start masturbating moments later.
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