WWE NXT's 31 Wrestlers - Ranked From Worst To Best

NXT is WWE's developmental territory, but it's also an inspired alternative to the depressingly homogenized pro-graps that we get on Monday and Thursday nights. The wrestlers who populate NXT's roster are therefore very different that what you'd see on Raw or SmackDown. 

They're an eclectic mix of indy darlings, legitimate athletes looking for a second career, and authentic originals trained from the ground up at the Performance Center. Because the NXT roster is somewhat amorphous, with competitors coming in and getting called up with regularity, this list will use the official roster as of the Takeover: Unstoppable live special, minus the guys that have clearly gotten called up to the main roster and the guys that haven't yet debuted. 

That means no Neville, no Lucha Dragons, no Samoa Joe and no Uhaa Nation. Every other in-ring performer that appears on NXT's official roster is listed here. Each wrestler is listed with three pros and three cons, and assigned a corresponding star rating (on a 1-5 scale). 

This rating is based upon their potential, both realized and unrealized, their accomplishments within the ring, their abilities to understand and inhabit their characters, and their chances of transcending NXT to become breakout stars.

Pros:

1. Great size

2. Two-time NCAA All-American

3. At one point kind of looked like WCW non-legend Glacier

Cons:

1. Has had difficulty finding a gimmick that works

2. Got the worst of the NXT Random Name Generator

3. Has been a jobber since the formation of Shoot Nation

Given that WWE has done basically nothing with Jack Swagger for years now, it's somewhat surprising that they went ahead and signed a second one. Or maybe they were hoping for another Brock Lesnar, given how hard his WWE.com bio stresses his secret origins as a superhumanly strong farm boy. 

He started out looking like a Gamma-irradiated Danny McBride before moving into a bleached blond "Blood Runs Cold" phase, before most recently adopting a Rick Steiner singlet-and-headgear look. He's been teaming with Jason Jordan and Angelo Dawkins as Shoot Nation, but only twice on television, both losses. Fulton is still only 25 years old, and he has plenty of time to find himself, but as of yet, he's done precious little in NXT.

Final rating: *1/2