WWE Needs To Eliminate NXT

But consider Indus Sher as an example. They are nowhere near ready as talents, but NXT is the only place in which they could, theoretically, develop. Except they're no longer deemed ready to appear on NXT, since it exists as a cable TV show now. Plans to push the act were dropped, and what little remains of the NXT tag team division now is (here's that refrain again) rather familiar and populated by established acts. By transitioning to television, NXT, the flaws of which had already revealed themselves, has become a paradox from which there is no escape. You don't win a ratings war with Indus Sher, but you don't have an Indus Sher without a developmental programme.

NXT can still exist as the more logically-sound, action-oriented WWE show. But it can't exist as either an onscreen developmental league nor the platform to main roster success because, to stave off the profound sense of over-familiarity that pervades everything, those indie-honed talents need to jump directly to RAW or SmackDown to reinvigorate flagship programming that automatically dates itself by "debuting" "new" talent whose stories, largely, have already been told to the same audience.

But that's the indictment: if these characters can't make a game-changing impact on the main roster, because they've settled into normality on NXT, what good is NXT? The Fatal 4-Way Iron Man Match that headlined night one of Super Tuesday proved quite conclusively that it relied on the old, cyclical roster model for relevance and to introduce new characters. It no longer works on its own terms, much less Vince's.

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