I know it's been a while since I've written anything for this blog, and the reason for that is that I just haven't had the passion lately to write about much of anything. Every armchair booker on the internet is having their say about what's right or what's wrong with WWE and how excited they are for AEW's imminent premiere on TNT and with me adding yet another voice that echoed the same sentiments among an already-crowded field, my voice felt superfluous.
So then why am I returning now to cover a subject that every human being on the face of the earth* has an opinion about?
(* = not literally, but it sure fucking feels that way)
On August 19th, WWE made the announcement that NXT (you know, the best wrestling show in the world) will no longer be on the WWE Network, but instead will be moving to USA on September 18th, and it will be live and it will be two hours long.
Yay?
Look, there isn't a person with a functional brain and the most basic critical thinking skills that thinks that this isn't petty as fuck by Vince McMahon to use WWE's most critically successful show as the counter-programming to October 2nd's debut of AEW on TNT.
So the analysis began and the four most important questions seem to be the following: who does this help, who could this hurt, what does it mean for the future of NXT, and which will you watch? So let's look at these one at a time.
#1: Who Could This Help?
First of all, there's nothing confirmed yet as far as this is concerned, but the rumor mill has been churning this talking point out somewhat steadily over the last few days and that's that NXT employees will start getting paid more. That's definitely a big plus in the Help column if that ends up being the case. Frankly, I can't understand why that wouldn't be the case. These guys and gals are being thrust onto the national basic cable stage. That should absolutely include a bump in pay. It also helps NXT as it becomes, by default, a legitimate third brand for WWE. Instead of it being just Raw and Smackdown, they now have to include NXT in that same breath and that's huge for all the talent and people in Creative on NXT.
It also helps the talent in NXT get greater exposure. Sure there was that time prior to last Wrestlemania that Johnny Gargano, Tommaso Ciampa, Ricochet and Aleister Black started getting time on Raw and Smackdown. Gargano and Ciampa's exposure was limited due to Ciampa's injuries, but hot damn did Ric and Aleister looked like they were getting pushed to the moon, even being given a shot at the Smackdown Tag titles at Mania. But the rest of NXT, while getting the odd look on the main roster once or twice, like with Io Shirai and Candice LeRae were in the Women's Royal Rumble last January, otherwise unless they were called up, they've been few and far between. This will give the people that Vince deems not ready for prime time their shot, and depending on its level of success after the live show launch, it could become the actual third brand that NXT should be.
Conceptually, this should also help both AEW and NXT as since they're going head to head will give both shows the opportunity to step up their game. NXT has an almost religious fervor in its fan base thanks to multiple "5-star" matches as well as just mostly well-booked matches, well-crafted characters and smartly-designed rivalries while AEW is clearly still coming in as the underdog since there will only have been four AEW-branded PPVs prior to their national TV debut, and that hasn't been much cause for the average viewer to get excited about. Of course us marks are excited as hell, but all this means is that AEW has to work even harder to get and maintain our attention. I've been really impressed by the matches I've seen from AEW but I have yet to favor one of their PPVs over a TakeOver.
#2: Who Could Get Hurt?
Let's start by facing an unavoidable truth: NXT will never be the same. NXT was this gift; this little slice of heaven that we could watch and expect quality as opposed to Raw and Smackdown (mostly Raw) where we were genuinely surprised when we got something of quality. Take last week's episode of Raw. It was really good. They did good work on that episode. Were there things that just didn't make sense, like Seth Rollins and Braun Strowman beating The Revival to win the Raw Tag titles? Of course! But you had little moments, like Rey Mysterio's retirement/non-retirement moment, which honestly moved me to a tear, Sasha murdering Natalya, and the overall quality of the booking and matches were pretty solid. But while it was good, it wasn't expected, and like when I enjoy a DCEU film, it makes it even better because we're grading it on a curve. We expect 2 hours of trash and an hour of fair to middling stuff on every episode of Raw. But NXT is something we always expect to be good. I'm not necessarily saying that the quality will absolutely change, but this is a different animal now. Instead of creating stories that are all taped over a few three-hour chunks and then cut into one hour a week, they're going to be doing two hours every week live. That's going to affect a lot of aspects of NXT that have become so familiar. While they're still going to be staying at Full Sail, that could change as well depending on their popularity. Not that I would mind a touring NXT, but that will change some of the dynamic.
And then there's the looming specter of Vincent Kennedy McMahon and his potential involvement with the NXT brand.
When the move to USA was announced, I have to say that I was one of the many people who were immediately shook to their core because with NXT now being broadcast live on basic cable, this would now "require" the attention of Vince. And everyone knows that Vince doesn't make things better. This is a guy who believes that his corporation has more rights than his performers, who is constantly leaning on the nostalgia button in favor of actual creativity when he's in a jam. If, by some chance, Triple H is left to his own devices and is able to continue running NXT with some level of autonomy, but if it ends up suffering a ratings slump against AEW, then dollars to donuts, Vince is going to become more involved and we're going to get Vince screaming in Mauro Ranallo's ear during the broadcast, Nigel McGuinness is going to be a more annoying Corey Graves-esque super-argumentative heel commentator, Beth Phoenix will be even more quiet than she already is, and that's just the announce team. Never mind who we're going to be seeing more and less of in the actual show, because we know that Vince is all about that beef. And we're going to be getting guest appearances from the... well, can we even call it a main roster anymore? If NXT is going to be a third prime time show, can they now go back and forth with the "wild card rule" (which we really know isn't even a thing anymore)? But you can bet that a Seth or Becky or Roman or Daniel will be seen at NXT before too long. At least with Daniel Bryan, you're going to be pretty much guaranteed that he's going to put them over.
Admittedly it took me a long time to get over that Vince fear because I honestly believe that there will still be good NXT. Hunter has proven time and again that he's at the reins of something really special here, which is why they're not just shoving 205 Live over to Wednesdays, which would be arguably the easiest call since Smackdown was shown on Thursdays for a long long time so showing a pre-taped show would be really easy. But they're also going to want to keep some weekly content on the Network to justify people paying for it.
So if Hunter remains solidly at the reins and the creative aspect remains the same, NXT should become the aforementioned legit third show.
As far as how AEW could be negatively affected, this could potentially hurt them because of the simple fact that WWE is the establishment. They are Disney to AEW's Lionsgate or A24 (a reference to all you film studio fans out there). Hunter just said that he doesn't look at AEW as "competition", which is a bald-faced lie and we all know it. If it wasn't "competition", why are they putting NXT on Wednesday nights at exactly the same time? So that's some bullshit there.
AEW has a ways to go before it becomes a real force in the industry. Right now, even after four very successful PPV's, AEW is more of an idea than a reality. Everyone talks about AEW as the place that all the people who have been poorly booked or otherwise mistreated by WWE should go. And AEW does seem to have a somewhat idealistic outlook on what they're doing. "Fight for the Fallen" was a charity event that put money towards gun violence, and WWE is doing shows in Saudi Arabia where they're taking money from a royal family that oppresses women and the LGBTQ+ community as well as silencing dissenting voices so AEW is already starting on the right side of history. They also are pushing Nyla Rose pretty hard and she's certainly the biggest breakout transgender talent in the wrestling world. Sonny Kiss is being allowed to do his own thing so far which is very openly queer and I love it and all Sonya Deville is allowed to do is carry a Pride flag in her back pocket. But all of their PPVs thus far have felt a lot more like indie wrestling with some big name superstars, and while that's a good thing that will really help differentiate itself from WWE, it will also be the thing that will translate harder for the major WWE marks because the war is not only being fought in the ratings; it is already being fought online.
Look at Wrestling Twitter. We are in the week following three major wrestling shows all on the same day: New Japan's Royal Quest, NXT UK's TakeOver Cardiff, and AEW's All Out. There are always going to be people who mark out for New Japan hard and will live and die by their brand. I'm not one of them, but I can totally understand it. It has its hardcore devotees and they don't give a shit about what the other brands are doing because they're not competing with any of them, so the real online war is between which show was better: All Out or TakeOver Cardiff? Personally I preferred TakeOver Cardiff to All Out because I felt the emotional stakes were stronger than AEW even if we didn't get super .gif-worthy spots from it like from the Darby Allin/Joey Janela/Jimmy Havoc "Cracker Barrel Clash" or pretty much the entire Young Bucks/Lucha Bros match. But that's also not to say that the show was by any means bad. It was pretty damn good and a lot of fun pretty much from start to finish. And TakeOver Cardiff had issues of its own. The Women's title match between Toni Storm and Kay Lee Ray felt super rushed and I in no way felt that Ray winning clean was the right call. But damn, the show got off to a good start with the Noam Dar/Travis Banks match, following that up with the Ilya Dragunov/Cesaro surprise bout; the triple threat tag match was great, and the straight-up fucking war between WALTER and Tyler Bate was just tremendous and was the match of the weekend for me and probably the best NXT UK match I've seen so far.
But you look at the comments section on any given dirt sheet or go on Twitter, and you've got the "AEW SUCKED AND NXT UK WAS AWESOME" and vice versa.
Then out of the clear blue came CM Punk who said the following at Starrcast this Saturday:
“Don’t let either company trick you into thinking it’s a ‘us vs. them’ thing - just enjoy the wrestling. Whether it’s WWE or AEW or NXT, you guys don’t have to choose. You can fucking watch it all! That’s rad.”
I'm glad that CM Punk exists. He's the biggest personality in wrestling so far to really just come out and say, "You know what? This is all pretty fucking cool that we have all these options and let's hope that they are loved by all". Unfortunately, this is just not the world we live in right now. You have to be Red or Blue. You have to be a Marvel fan or a DC fan. And you have to be a AEW or WWE fan. We are living in a world without nuance or grey areas any more. Whether or not that's going to be a real consequence is something that can only be judged by time, but I can't completely discount it.
#3. What Does the Future of NXT Look Like?
We kind of covered this already a bit, but let's dig a little deeper. We only have a few weeks until the USA version of NXT launches, but if I had to bet money, I'm betting that the production values will be a little higher. With it still being at Full Sail, I'm not thinking they're going to be remodeling or anything like that, but things will probably look a little better and crisper from a visual standpoint. And when TakeOvers come around, we're probably looking at those events looking bigger and more similar to main roster PPVs in regards to the money being spent on them.
Since we're going to be spending a lot more time with them, we're looking at more matches with the top talent and here's where it becomes potentially a little scary. If Vince does force his way in, we're looking at a lot less developmental matches. This is prime time TV now, not just this little pre-taped show on the network that they film three hours of at a time. They're going to want more of the established talent each week, and maybe once every few weeks we'll get one developmental match.
As far as brand ambassadors, though, we're still looking at Adam Cole being the top heel (because he is right now) and the rest of Undisputed Era looking to run roughshod over everything and with Street Profits now basically gone from NXT and doing their Greek chorus thing on Raw every week until Vince decides to book them in a match, the main babyface tag team is now Breezango. So I'm also thinking we're going to get a lot more ad hoc tag teams. There's also Danny Burch and current Wrestling Twitter king Oney Lorcan, but they're not going to be real brand ambassadors. But the guy who's going to end up being the big babyface on the show is still going to be Johnny because he's Johnny Freakin' Wrestling. He's their guaranteed five-star guy and their best bout machine. Matt Riddle and Velveteen Dream are obviously going to be huge, but they're going to have the low-key stars as well, like Keith Lee, KUSHIDA, Dominic Dijakovic, Jordan Myles, and Killian Dain. From the Women's roster, Shayna and the Horsewomen are still going to be in charge, and expect Duke and Shafir to actually pick up some wins. And here's where things continue to suffer a bit because their Women's roster is not terribly deep. Candice LeRae is the closest thing they have to a white-mean babyface, but I have no interest in watching them try to cool down her rivalry with Io Shirai just yet. Mia Yim and Bianca Belair have had some quality matches as well, but that's about it. Sure they have Taynara Conti, Xia Li, Vanessa Borne and Aliyah, Kacy Catanzaro (despite recent reports to the contrary) and Dakota Kai is due for a return pretty soon, but that's it. Rhea Ripley is looking to get into it with Shayna and that could be temporary due to her NXT UK status, but the same could be said about Pete Dunne, who seems to be taking some time in Full Sail as well. So there's going to be some people that are going to see a lot more use in the near future, and I'd definitely be prepared for some under-utilized main roster talent starting to become regulars on NXT.
This isn't to say that this can't work to NXT's and even the main roster's benefit. We're always complaining about how the main roster is too big for a lot of performers to get a fair shake, so getting a lot of the people running after the 24/7 championship down to NXT to get in some good matches will be terrific for that show and for their careers rather than just sitting in Craft Services eating carbs and collecting checks until their contracts run out because I'd wager that's not what a lot of these people got into the wrestling business for.
But we haven't yet touched on the real future of NXT, and that's the future of the performers. NXT, as it stands, is supposed to be the developmental brand; it's the show where people are tested and depending on who they think can be worthy of the main roster, eventually get called up and put on one of the big two shows. Making NXT a third prime-time basic cable show could essentially nullify that, and that could be the biggest blessing for fans of the product, but maybe not what the talent themselves were looking for. Main roster status means bigger paydays and more exposure. We still don't know the particulars of this move are as far as salaries are concerned, but we know that the main roster talent does get paid more and I'm hoping that will change and the NXT talent will get their fair slice of that pie. But us fans... we are sick and fucking tired of NXT talent to really get over and then see them go up to the main roster and get a rocket strapped to them for a few months only to be forgotten or the errant ones who get a solid year before they're rarely heard from again. If they stay in NXT, their chances of staying relevant and awesome are much higher and if this show really takes off, they could stay indefinitely and not have to be the next big thing to eventually get buried.
#4. Which Will You Watch?
I'm in a different position than others because I work a evening schedule and I work Wednesdays so watching anything live is a problem, but if I didn't, I would still have to decide what to watch live and what to DVR. Well, the answer to that seems obvious but it's not, and we'll get into that in a bit, but if I had the opportunity to watch live, I would actually be all in with AEW.
"Why? You profess to love NXT so much!"
Why I would watch AEW live instead of NXT is for the reason of ratings. It's vitally important that AEW get really good ratings. If I watch NXT live and DVR AEW, it means that WWE still has all the upper hands. AEW might last for a bit against the might of the WWE monolith, but without the support of good ratings, that competition so many of us seem to want so badly will wither and die a slow and painful death.
Then again...
If NXT does indeed start out with little to no interference from Vince, and it starts losing in the ratings to AEW after a protracted war, it's not like Vince is going to shove it back on the WWE Network; he's going to get super involved and try to make NXT like Raw and Smackdown. He'll favor bigger performers, sexier ladies, overly complicated motivations and more childish antics. Basically, he'll be dumbing it down for the lowest common denominator and I really don't want that. So I'd be watching NXT live and DVR'ing AEW.
Then again...
If AEW is putting out a better alternative to WWE main roster shows, and they're getting lower ratings, and since I have no idea what Tony Khan is like as a creative force on a weekly basis and what the brain trust at TNT would make of it, I don't know if they'd be as likely to just switch nights, because there's no fucking way that Vincent Kennedy McMahon will admit defeat and switch to a different night. Frankly, I'm a little shocked that TNT decided to air it on Wednesdays anyway. Since Smackdown was moving to Fridays anyway, and Tuesday nights would suddenly have this big wrestling promotion-sized hole in its programming, they could have easily slid it in there. I'm not an avid watcher of TNT as it is and I have no idea if there's some original content they already have on Tuesday nights that's a really big deal or not.
Again, this doesn't apply but still creates something of a real moral conundrum. Either way, I'm supporting something new but with all the steps that AEW is taking to really differentiate itself as a company from WWE, I honestly think that I'll be more apt to support them from the get-go. The other big push AEW needs to make going forward is obviously providing other kinds of opportunities for their performers. A union would be nice. Healthcare is also a big plus for AEW. This is a 21st Century company and they need to stop thinking like who did it before and do it like no one else has while using the best parts of the promotions all these other performers have worked with and jettisoning the worst.
However, since NXT is debuting before AEW, that guarantees that WWE will have the advantage going in, and we'll also have seen what this new version of NXT will look like before we can truly judge whether or not this is going to be a "I need to watch this live instead of anything else" scenario.
So whatever choice we make, I just hope it's the right one.
So then why am I returning now to cover a subject that every human being on the face of the earth* has an opinion about?
(* = not literally, but it sure fucking feels that way)
On August 19th, WWE made the announcement that NXT (you know, the best wrestling show in the world) will no longer be on the WWE Network, but instead will be moving to USA on September 18th, and it will be live and it will be two hours long.
Yay?
Look, there isn't a person with a functional brain and the most basic critical thinking skills that thinks that this isn't petty as fuck by Vince McMahon to use WWE's most critically successful show as the counter-programming to October 2nd's debut of AEW on TNT.
So the analysis began and the four most important questions seem to be the following: who does this help, who could this hurt, what does it mean for the future of NXT, and which will you watch? So let's look at these one at a time.
#1: Who Could This Help?
First of all, there's nothing confirmed yet as far as this is concerned, but the rumor mill has been churning this talking point out somewhat steadily over the last few days and that's that NXT employees will start getting paid more. That's definitely a big plus in the Help column if that ends up being the case. Frankly, I can't understand why that wouldn't be the case. These guys and gals are being thrust onto the national basic cable stage. That should absolutely include a bump in pay. It also helps NXT as it becomes, by default, a legitimate third brand for WWE. Instead of it being just Raw and Smackdown, they now have to include NXT in that same breath and that's huge for all the talent and people in Creative on NXT.
It also helps the talent in NXT get greater exposure. Sure there was that time prior to last Wrestlemania that Johnny Gargano, Tommaso Ciampa, Ricochet and Aleister Black started getting time on Raw and Smackdown. Gargano and Ciampa's exposure was limited due to Ciampa's injuries, but hot damn did Ric and Aleister looked like they were getting pushed to the moon, even being given a shot at the Smackdown Tag titles at Mania. But the rest of NXT, while getting the odd look on the main roster once or twice, like with Io Shirai and Candice LeRae were in the Women's Royal Rumble last January, otherwise unless they were called up, they've been few and far between. This will give the people that Vince deems not ready for prime time their shot, and depending on its level of success after the live show launch, it could become the actual third brand that NXT should be.
Conceptually, this should also help both AEW and NXT as since they're going head to head will give both shows the opportunity to step up their game. NXT has an almost religious fervor in its fan base thanks to multiple "5-star" matches as well as just mostly well-booked matches, well-crafted characters and smartly-designed rivalries while AEW is clearly still coming in as the underdog since there will only have been four AEW-branded PPVs prior to their national TV debut, and that hasn't been much cause for the average viewer to get excited about. Of course us marks are excited as hell, but all this means is that AEW has to work even harder to get and maintain our attention. I've been really impressed by the matches I've seen from AEW but I have yet to favor one of their PPVs over a TakeOver.
#2: Who Could Get Hurt?
Let's start by facing an unavoidable truth: NXT will never be the same. NXT was this gift; this little slice of heaven that we could watch and expect quality as opposed to Raw and Smackdown (mostly Raw) where we were genuinely surprised when we got something of quality. Take last week's episode of Raw. It was really good. They did good work on that episode. Were there things that just didn't make sense, like Seth Rollins and Braun Strowman beating The Revival to win the Raw Tag titles? Of course! But you had little moments, like Rey Mysterio's retirement/non-retirement moment, which honestly moved me to a tear, Sasha murdering Natalya, and the overall quality of the booking and matches were pretty solid. But while it was good, it wasn't expected, and like when I enjoy a DCEU film, it makes it even better because we're grading it on a curve. We expect 2 hours of trash and an hour of fair to middling stuff on every episode of Raw. But NXT is something we always expect to be good. I'm not necessarily saying that the quality will absolutely change, but this is a different animal now. Instead of creating stories that are all taped over a few three-hour chunks and then cut into one hour a week, they're going to be doing two hours every week live. That's going to affect a lot of aspects of NXT that have become so familiar. While they're still going to be staying at Full Sail, that could change as well depending on their popularity. Not that I would mind a touring NXT, but that will change some of the dynamic.
And then there's the looming specter of Vincent Kennedy McMahon and his potential involvement with the NXT brand.
When the move to USA was announced, I have to say that I was one of the many people who were immediately shook to their core because with NXT now being broadcast live on basic cable, this would now "require" the attention of Vince. And everyone knows that Vince doesn't make things better. This is a guy who believes that his corporation has more rights than his performers, who is constantly leaning on the nostalgia button in favor of actual creativity when he's in a jam. If, by some chance, Triple H is left to his own devices and is able to continue running NXT with some level of autonomy, but if it ends up suffering a ratings slump against AEW, then dollars to donuts, Vince is going to become more involved and we're going to get Vince screaming in Mauro Ranallo's ear during the broadcast, Nigel McGuinness is going to be a more annoying Corey Graves-esque super-argumentative heel commentator, Beth Phoenix will be even more quiet than she already is, and that's just the announce team. Never mind who we're going to be seeing more and less of in the actual show, because we know that Vince is all about that beef. And we're going to be getting guest appearances from the... well, can we even call it a main roster anymore? If NXT is going to be a third prime time show, can they now go back and forth with the "wild card rule" (which we really know isn't even a thing anymore)? But you can bet that a Seth or Becky or Roman or Daniel will be seen at NXT before too long. At least with Daniel Bryan, you're going to be pretty much guaranteed that he's going to put them over.
Admittedly it took me a long time to get over that Vince fear because I honestly believe that there will still be good NXT. Hunter has proven time and again that he's at the reins of something really special here, which is why they're not just shoving 205 Live over to Wednesdays, which would be arguably the easiest call since Smackdown was shown on Thursdays for a long long time so showing a pre-taped show would be really easy. But they're also going to want to keep some weekly content on the Network to justify people paying for it.
So if Hunter remains solidly at the reins and the creative aspect remains the same, NXT should become the aforementioned legit third show.
As far as how AEW could be negatively affected, this could potentially hurt them because of the simple fact that WWE is the establishment. They are Disney to AEW's Lionsgate or A24 (a reference to all you film studio fans out there). Hunter just said that he doesn't look at AEW as "competition", which is a bald-faced lie and we all know it. If it wasn't "competition", why are they putting NXT on Wednesday nights at exactly the same time? So that's some bullshit there.
AEW has a ways to go before it becomes a real force in the industry. Right now, even after four very successful PPV's, AEW is more of an idea than a reality. Everyone talks about AEW as the place that all the people who have been poorly booked or otherwise mistreated by WWE should go. And AEW does seem to have a somewhat idealistic outlook on what they're doing. "Fight for the Fallen" was a charity event that put money towards gun violence, and WWE is doing shows in Saudi Arabia where they're taking money from a royal family that oppresses women and the LGBTQ+ community as well as silencing dissenting voices so AEW is already starting on the right side of history. They also are pushing Nyla Rose pretty hard and she's certainly the biggest breakout transgender talent in the wrestling world. Sonny Kiss is being allowed to do his own thing so far which is very openly queer and I love it and all Sonya Deville is allowed to do is carry a Pride flag in her back pocket. But all of their PPVs thus far have felt a lot more like indie wrestling with some big name superstars, and while that's a good thing that will really help differentiate itself from WWE, it will also be the thing that will translate harder for the major WWE marks because the war is not only being fought in the ratings; it is already being fought online.
Look at Wrestling Twitter. We are in the week following three major wrestling shows all on the same day: New Japan's Royal Quest, NXT UK's TakeOver Cardiff, and AEW's All Out. There are always going to be people who mark out for New Japan hard and will live and die by their brand. I'm not one of them, but I can totally understand it. It has its hardcore devotees and they don't give a shit about what the other brands are doing because they're not competing with any of them, so the real online war is between which show was better: All Out or TakeOver Cardiff? Personally I preferred TakeOver Cardiff to All Out because I felt the emotional stakes were stronger than AEW even if we didn't get super .gif-worthy spots from it like from the Darby Allin/Joey Janela/Jimmy Havoc "Cracker Barrel Clash" or pretty much the entire Young Bucks/Lucha Bros match. But that's also not to say that the show was by any means bad. It was pretty damn good and a lot of fun pretty much from start to finish. And TakeOver Cardiff had issues of its own. The Women's title match between Toni Storm and Kay Lee Ray felt super rushed and I in no way felt that Ray winning clean was the right call. But damn, the show got off to a good start with the Noam Dar/Travis Banks match, following that up with the Ilya Dragunov/Cesaro surprise bout; the triple threat tag match was great, and the straight-up fucking war between WALTER and Tyler Bate was just tremendous and was the match of the weekend for me and probably the best NXT UK match I've seen so far.
But you look at the comments section on any given dirt sheet or go on Twitter, and you've got the "AEW SUCKED AND NXT UK WAS AWESOME" and vice versa.
Then out of the clear blue came CM Punk who said the following at Starrcast this Saturday:
“Don’t let either company trick you into thinking it’s a ‘us vs. them’ thing - just enjoy the wrestling. Whether it’s WWE or AEW or NXT, you guys don’t have to choose. You can fucking watch it all! That’s rad.”
I'm glad that CM Punk exists. He's the biggest personality in wrestling so far to really just come out and say, "You know what? This is all pretty fucking cool that we have all these options and let's hope that they are loved by all". Unfortunately, this is just not the world we live in right now. You have to be Red or Blue. You have to be a Marvel fan or a DC fan. And you have to be a AEW or WWE fan. We are living in a world without nuance or grey areas any more. Whether or not that's going to be a real consequence is something that can only be judged by time, but I can't completely discount it.
#3. What Does the Future of NXT Look Like?
We kind of covered this already a bit, but let's dig a little deeper. We only have a few weeks until the USA version of NXT launches, but if I had to bet money, I'm betting that the production values will be a little higher. With it still being at Full Sail, I'm not thinking they're going to be remodeling or anything like that, but things will probably look a little better and crisper from a visual standpoint. And when TakeOvers come around, we're probably looking at those events looking bigger and more similar to main roster PPVs in regards to the money being spent on them.
Since we're going to be spending a lot more time with them, we're looking at more matches with the top talent and here's where it becomes potentially a little scary. If Vince does force his way in, we're looking at a lot less developmental matches. This is prime time TV now, not just this little pre-taped show on the network that they film three hours of at a time. They're going to want more of the established talent each week, and maybe once every few weeks we'll get one developmental match.
As far as brand ambassadors, though, we're still looking at Adam Cole being the top heel (because he is right now) and the rest of Undisputed Era looking to run roughshod over everything and with Street Profits now basically gone from NXT and doing their Greek chorus thing on Raw every week until Vince decides to book them in a match, the main babyface tag team is now Breezango. So I'm also thinking we're going to get a lot more ad hoc tag teams. There's also Danny Burch and current Wrestling Twitter king Oney Lorcan, but they're not going to be real brand ambassadors. But the guy who's going to end up being the big babyface on the show is still going to be Johnny because he's Johnny Freakin' Wrestling. He's their guaranteed five-star guy and their best bout machine. Matt Riddle and Velveteen Dream are obviously going to be huge, but they're going to have the low-key stars as well, like Keith Lee, KUSHIDA, Dominic Dijakovic, Jordan Myles, and Killian Dain. From the Women's roster, Shayna and the Horsewomen are still going to be in charge, and expect Duke and Shafir to actually pick up some wins. And here's where things continue to suffer a bit because their Women's roster is not terribly deep. Candice LeRae is the closest thing they have to a white-mean babyface, but I have no interest in watching them try to cool down her rivalry with Io Shirai just yet. Mia Yim and Bianca Belair have had some quality matches as well, but that's about it. Sure they have Taynara Conti, Xia Li, Vanessa Borne and Aliyah, Kacy Catanzaro (despite recent reports to the contrary) and Dakota Kai is due for a return pretty soon, but that's it. Rhea Ripley is looking to get into it with Shayna and that could be temporary due to her NXT UK status, but the same could be said about Pete Dunne, who seems to be taking some time in Full Sail as well. So there's going to be some people that are going to see a lot more use in the near future, and I'd definitely be prepared for some under-utilized main roster talent starting to become regulars on NXT.
This isn't to say that this can't work to NXT's and even the main roster's benefit. We're always complaining about how the main roster is too big for a lot of performers to get a fair shake, so getting a lot of the people running after the 24/7 championship down to NXT to get in some good matches will be terrific for that show and for their careers rather than just sitting in Craft Services eating carbs and collecting checks until their contracts run out because I'd wager that's not what a lot of these people got into the wrestling business for.
But we haven't yet touched on the real future of NXT, and that's the future of the performers. NXT, as it stands, is supposed to be the developmental brand; it's the show where people are tested and depending on who they think can be worthy of the main roster, eventually get called up and put on one of the big two shows. Making NXT a third prime-time basic cable show could essentially nullify that, and that could be the biggest blessing for fans of the product, but maybe not what the talent themselves were looking for. Main roster status means bigger paydays and more exposure. We still don't know the particulars of this move are as far as salaries are concerned, but we know that the main roster talent does get paid more and I'm hoping that will change and the NXT talent will get their fair slice of that pie. But us fans... we are sick and fucking tired of NXT talent to really get over and then see them go up to the main roster and get a rocket strapped to them for a few months only to be forgotten or the errant ones who get a solid year before they're rarely heard from again. If they stay in NXT, their chances of staying relevant and awesome are much higher and if this show really takes off, they could stay indefinitely and not have to be the next big thing to eventually get buried.
#4. Which Will You Watch?
I'm in a different position than others because I work a evening schedule and I work Wednesdays so watching anything live is a problem, but if I didn't, I would still have to decide what to watch live and what to DVR. Well, the answer to that seems obvious but it's not, and we'll get into that in a bit, but if I had the opportunity to watch live, I would actually be all in with AEW.
"Why? You profess to love NXT so much!"
Why I would watch AEW live instead of NXT is for the reason of ratings. It's vitally important that AEW get really good ratings. If I watch NXT live and DVR AEW, it means that WWE still has all the upper hands. AEW might last for a bit against the might of the WWE monolith, but without the support of good ratings, that competition so many of us seem to want so badly will wither and die a slow and painful death.
Then again...
If NXT does indeed start out with little to no interference from Vince, and it starts losing in the ratings to AEW after a protracted war, it's not like Vince is going to shove it back on the WWE Network; he's going to get super involved and try to make NXT like Raw and Smackdown. He'll favor bigger performers, sexier ladies, overly complicated motivations and more childish antics. Basically, he'll be dumbing it down for the lowest common denominator and I really don't want that. So I'd be watching NXT live and DVR'ing AEW.
Then again...
If AEW is putting out a better alternative to WWE main roster shows, and they're getting lower ratings, and since I have no idea what Tony Khan is like as a creative force on a weekly basis and what the brain trust at TNT would make of it, I don't know if they'd be as likely to just switch nights, because there's no fucking way that Vincent Kennedy McMahon will admit defeat and switch to a different night. Frankly, I'm a little shocked that TNT decided to air it on Wednesdays anyway. Since Smackdown was moving to Fridays anyway, and Tuesday nights would suddenly have this big wrestling promotion-sized hole in its programming, they could have easily slid it in there. I'm not an avid watcher of TNT as it is and I have no idea if there's some original content they already have on Tuesday nights that's a really big deal or not.
Again, this doesn't apply but still creates something of a real moral conundrum. Either way, I'm supporting something new but with all the steps that AEW is taking to really differentiate itself as a company from WWE, I honestly think that I'll be more apt to support them from the get-go. The other big push AEW needs to make going forward is obviously providing other kinds of opportunities for their performers. A union would be nice. Healthcare is also a big plus for AEW. This is a 21st Century company and they need to stop thinking like who did it before and do it like no one else has while using the best parts of the promotions all these other performers have worked with and jettisoning the worst.
However, since NXT is debuting before AEW, that guarantees that WWE will have the advantage going in, and we'll also have seen what this new version of NXT will look like before we can truly judge whether or not this is going to be a "I need to watch this live instead of anything else" scenario.
So whatever choice we make, I just hope it's the right one.
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