WWE Needs To Eliminate NXT

NXT was the show on which some of the very best wrestlers in the world were encouraged to wrestle some of the very best matches in the world.

NXT was fading badly before AEW exposed it. Building five guaranteed bell-to-bell bangers with dry, formulaic TV once every 2.5 months for a TakeOver - with talent Triple H didn't develop one bit - was like a bought cheat code to critical acclaim. Triple H happened upon a dependable, incredibly safe formula that guaranteed in-ring brilliance to the detriment of absorbing, vital-feeling episodic TV. NXT wasn't particularly difficult to book, and on the WWE Network, with no real need for ratings and the must-see TV that drives them, it didn't need to be. The strategic goal designed to suppress the rise of the independent scene - "the wrestlers you like, only in front of a more glamorous backdrop" - materialised with fairly mid programming (the early #DIY saga excepted) scripted with the knowledge that the "This is awesome!" chants were only a month or so away.

NXT, to an extent, functioned similarly to OVW at its peak; yes, we'd seen Bayley and American Alpha essentially complete a character arc consistent with a limited event series, but the main roster was a new season we once anticipated, before those characters - and to an extent NXT itself, since the old hope has long since vanished - were swamped by the broken mechanisms of the main roster.

The main roster has felt eerily familiar, even ancient, for the longest time.

CONT'D...(2 of 6)