Thursday, March 28, 2024
EditorialNXT Takesover the Independents?

NXT Takesover the Independents?

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It may not be the Monday night wars of old but we do have a similar, albeit on a much lower scale war happening on Wednesday nights that is changing the independent scene landscape.

Currently, all on the same night we have Ring of Honor and TNA on Destination America, Lucha Underground on El Rey and NXT of the WWE Network that encompasses the whose who of the independent scene, there are not many gaps left particularly with ROH having relationship with NJPW allowing them access to the stars currently in Japan.

What is interesting is not necessarily the growth of wrestling on TV or the appearance of an independent wrestling revolution of sorts, its the fact that the WWE is getting heavily involved in actual professional wrestling and not simply sports entertainment, yes you read that right. Actual professional wrestling on a WWE brand. Anyone who has been watching NXT cannot dispute the quality of programming that they have presented of the last 2 years.

The evolution of NXT is quite interesting and has gotten to the point where it is now impacting the main roster on RAW. Now taking a step back, these changes may have been a long time coming as the last round of call ups over the past few years have shown to be a complete utter success that is finally starting to show shades of the future being now. With the Shield and Wyatts (now Wyatts not nearly at prominent but still command main roster spots and TV time) we have 6 wrestlers who came up and made an difference in one way or another and 4 who have been in the main event picture one way or another. One step further, Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins who have been main eventing PPV’s are two individuals that do not fit the mold of typical Vince guys and are both veterans of the independent scene with Rollins being the ROH champion.

So after that success, NXT doubles down and gets the whose who of independent wrestlers, Neville, Sami Zayn, Itami, Kevin Owens, Uhaa Nation and rumors of offers being made to the Briscoes and Young Bucks. This group has serious street cred and are more in the mold of Daniel Bryan and Dean Ambrose than they are the big 7 foot tall behemoths that Vince likes to push.

Then we get news of Samao Joe signing and have guys like Rhino doing part time work while still being allowed to take independent dates. This shook the wrestling world to a point as it clearly indicated a shift if the typical WWE contracts and can be seen as a direct shot at competing with the increasingly popular independent scene.

Now we have NXT takeover happening on 8/22 at the Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn, NY the night before Summerslam. The whole WWE universe (employees included) will be on hand for this event that happens to be going head to head with Ring of Honor’s Field of Honor event, in you guessed it Brooklyn, NY.

ROH as already discussed, has a relationship with NJPW and share talent. At Field of Honor, NJPW stars Okada, Kushida and Nakamura will all be on hand for the event.

Now they will never admit it, but in response WWE announces last night that Jushin “Thunder” Liger will face Tyler Breeze at NXT Takeover which is quite shocking and almost as unprecedented as the Samoa Joe signing.

It seems that WWE wants NXT to go head to head with ROH and independent scene. Is the goal to slow the competition? Appease the IWC with an actual wrestling product? Or are we starting to see the independent scene and recent success of NXT starting to change the WWE main roster landscape and changing Vince’s mind about what type of product they should be presenting. Time will tell, but with Seth Rollings as champ, Kevin Owens taking down John Cena and now the NXT women taking on the diva’s to hopefully reshape the division the signs are clear things are changing and for once they seem for the better.

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