All credit for this column goes to Kenny McIntosh from WhatCulture.com
When Tyson Kidd was returning from injury back in 2014, instead of coming back to the main roster and probably ending up treading water on Superstars and Main Event, he went to NXT and with the help of Dusty Rhodes and others, discovered his character and became a great heel.
With the slow-burn of using his wife Natalya to get victories and the increased focus on him loving cats, the fans down at Full Sail were eating up this new and improved Tyson Kidd. He always had the in-ring talent, but only truly developed his character while bending bones down in Orlando.
Now, as 2016 is well and truly underway, there are several acts on the WWE roster who are in desperate need of a stint in so-called developmental, to work with younger guys and help work on their current character or just wipe the slate clean and try something new.
With weekly exposure via the WWE Network, and the Takeover specials being among the most popular events of the year, a run down in NXT could do wonders for some of the jobbers and afterthoughts on the WWE roster, putting them on Vince’s radar once more.
Before we begin, I’ve chosen not to include The Social Outcasts due to them being a regularly booked act on RAW (which I can’t see going much further than where they’re currently at given the talent pool on the main roster), so incase you’re wondering why they aren’t featured, that’s why.
With that out of the way, here are 8 acts that I think would benefit tremendously from an extended run down at the Performance Center working with NXT.
#8 SUMMER RAE
If you only watched Summer Rae on WWE TV in the last three years, you’d probably think she’s just a blonde model who doesn’t care about wrestling. Nobody could blame you for having that opinion, but Danielle Moinet is so much more than the Summer character that WWE allows her to portray on RAW.
On a recent episode of WWE Unfiltered, Rae talked about how big of a WWF fan she was growing up and let it be known how much she loved working down at NXT with Dusty Rhodes, learning promos and trying to get better at her in-ring work. She was called up to the main roster as Fandango’s dancer and valet in April 2013, but her career hasn’t really progressed since.
Sure, she’s been in some matches on RAW and SmackDown but she hasn’t been in one meaningful feud except being Rusev’s lover in the angle with Lana, a role she did a great job of portraying, putting in some fantastic performances.
Now she finds herself at another crossroads in her career – she was separated from Tyler Breeze last month and hasn’t been on TV since. A stint back in NXT would do Summer the world of good. Down at Full Sail she can either keep improving her ring work to the point where she could become part of the so-called revolution with the women on RAW, or she could become a valet to an up-and-coming act and guide them all the way to main roster success.
Either way, if Summer doesn’t get the chance to head back down there and give herself a career boost, she could end up on the chopping block in the not too distant future when she really deserves so much more.
#7 SIN CARA
The Lucha Dragons were a hit tag team in NXT throughout 2014 before being promoted to the main roster last year.
When Sin Cara got injured at the end of the year, it left an opportunity for Kalisto to go solo and begin his run as United States Champion. Now that Sin Cara is back, he’s kind of stuck in limbo in that the company clearly want to start pushing Kalisto as their new Mexican babyface star, leaving Cara without a full-time partner and little to do.
Jorge Arias originally played Hunico in WWE before taking over the Sin Cara gimmick from Mistico, but with his tag partner flying solo, it seems like a return to his old stomping ground in Florida would be the best thing for him. At 38 years old, Arias would probably prefer to freshen up the Sin Cara character rather than abandon it completely and start from scratch.
If he was able to add some dark elements to the character and have a 6-9 month heel run in NXT, that could set him up for a big return to take on Kalisto in a battle of the Lucha Dragons. Otherwise, I fear he’ll end up in Superstars purgatory for the rest of his WWE run.
#6 LOS MATADORES
Diego and Fernando make up Los Matadores, along with their former bull friend, El Torito. These Puerto Rican stars have had a rollercoaster ride in WWE without experiencing a great deal of success. Primo started off with his brother Carlito as a tag team before forming a full-time tag team with his cousin Epico, once the apple-spitter had left the company.
They were paired with Rosa Mendes without much fanfare and had a forgettable WWE Tag Team title reign. In 2013, they were repackaged as Los Matadores and it’s been downhill for the team ever since.
The Matadors are only one of two acts on this list that I think an absolute gimmick overhaul is needed for. The cousins are really great wrestlers and if you see them perform at WWE house shows, you’ll see that they’re pretty incredible at what they do, but sadly they have to walk about with jock straps on their face, like a modern-day Aldo Montaya.
These guys could really benefit from some time at the Performance Center and picking the brains of the likes of William Regal about how to develop their own character and cut killer promos.
There’s no reason that these two couldn’t spend a year in NXT coming up with a killer tag team idea, get it going down there, tear the house down on a couple of Takeovers before being called back up to the main roster to try and become a permanent fixture in the WWE’s tag team division.
Anything’s better than Los Matadores, surely.
#5 THE BIG SHOW
OK, I know some of you will be rolling your eyes at this one or think about just closing the browser but HEAR ME OUT, DAMNIT!
The Big Show has been an integral part of WWE for 17 years. Once he retires, people will begin to give him the credit he deserves, but sadly when you put a giant who should be used as a special attraction on TV every week for the better part of two decades, the fans begin to get tired of him.
At this stage of his career, Show doesn’t have much left to prove so before he has one last run culminating in a big WrestleMania retirement match, why not let him go down to NXT for 6 months, rest up, stay in the same place and help the younger talent get over by working with a man of his size?
When Show worked the Columbus, Ohio NXT house show last year, fans chanted “Please retire” and he ad-libbed a promo where he said he was going to stick around just to piss them off and he would be around for ten more years. He was so good that the crowd chanted “ten more years” at him after that. Clearly, there’s more to Show than what we see on Raw and Smackdown.
There are a lot of great stories to tell with Big Show down at NXT, the natural one being him going for the NXT Championship against Finn Balor. The clash of styles would be fun to watch and when Big Show is motivated and against a good opponent, the results are usually enjoyable for the fans – just remember that surprisingly excellent match with Roman Reigns at Extreme Rules.
Whether it’s a wild Takeover brawl with Samoa Joe or a battle with Apollo Crews over the No.1 contendership to the NXT Title, Big Show could be a valuable asset to younger guys as his career begins to wind down.
#4 FANDANGO
I think we can all agree, the Fandango character is dead – nobody cares about the character anymore.
The saddest part of it all is that Johnny Curtis, the man who plays the character, is actually a really good wrestler. It might shock fans to know that Curtis has been part of the WWE system for ten years. After starting in Deep South in 2006, he then moved to FCW in 2008 and was part of the fourth and fifth seasons of NXT(the game show version).
In October 2012, he made his debut as Fandango and, after upsetting Chris Jericho at WrestleMania 29, his career has stagnated ever since.
Curtis needs to go back to NXT – at 34 years old, he still has time to create a new character and make a go of it. The main focus of his NXT tenure this time round needs to be to create something that makes people forget about Fandango or, similar to Bray Wyatt, coming to the main roster, where initially they remembered him as Husky Harris but the Wyatt character was so effective that it was soon forgotten.
Johnny Curtis has what it takes to be a star in wrestling, he just needs a better gimmick, and I’m confident that working at the Performance Center and Full Sail, he’d find it.
#3 JACK SWAGGER
Jack Swagger is a man who should be a bigger star than he is. Some of that is WWE’s fault, but his 2013 arrest certainly didn’t help matters.
I was in Las Vegas when Swagger won the World Heavyweight title from Chris Jericho in 2010, and the reason it didn’t work wasn’t a reflection on Swagger’s abilities, but the fact that he was presented like a jobber for six months then suddenly won Money In The Bank and then the World Title within a week.
That’s erratic booking and makes suspension of disbelief impossible.
His pairing with Zeb Colter and Cesaro, however, was great and they all benefited from working with each other. Since the break up with Zeb, Swagger has been used as the patriotic American against Rusev and Del Rio, only to be tossed aside again once he’s helped the foreigners get over.
While most other stars in this list need to go down to NXT to revamp their character, all Swagger needs is a change of scenery. On NXT, he’d be able to tweak his character and try new things out that could help him when he gets back to the main roster. That and I want to see Swagger and Chad Gable face off over who’s the more All-American American.
#2 DAMIEN SANDOW
When your career ends up with you being in a Mega Powers rip-off tag team, you know it’s not a good sign. What a difference a year makes, huh? This time last year Damien Mizdow was by far the most popular wrestler on RAW as he entertained audiences every week as The Miz’s stunt double.
But once they started the breakup at WrestleMania 31, there was no plan on how to follow it up with Sandow. He’d end up in a tag team with Curtis Axel as a Savage and Hogan tribute act but when the Hogan scandal broke last summer, that was the end of that gimmick.
Ever since, he’s been relegated to B shows and inevitably ends up looking at the lights. There’s no better time for Sandow to go back down to NXT and work with the coaches on coming up with a long-term gimmick for him that could work on the main roster.
At just 33 years old, there’s plenty of time left to find his money making gimmick, but he has to be thinking long-term because as the fallout from Mizdow showed us, WWE won’t be there to come up with something once your popular run comes to an end.
#1 NATALYA
The question on everyone’s minds last year was “Why isn’t Natalya part of the Divas Revolution?”. She would get asked the question, and not be able to give an answer. Yet again, Nattie was overlooked for most of the other women on the roster, even though she’s one of the best in-ring female performers going.
Nowadays, she’s the token three minute Total Divas match to remind people that the show is still on the air.
If Natalya was to take a 6 month stint down in NXT, just imagine the exciting matches she could have down at Full Sail. An NXT Women’s Title match with Bayley would be a show-stealer on any Takeover card, not to mention the beauty of watching Nattie and Asuka battle it out in an all-out war.
I’d even be intrigued to see a Natalya match with Nia Jaxx and watch how it unfolds. Given that she’s one of the best wrestlers in the company, the NXT cards would benefit from her presence and if she gets some momentum, maybe she can finally get her shot at being a central part of the Women’s division on RAW.
