Thursday, March 28, 2024
Editorial2017 WWE Predictions: Which NXT Superstars Will Go to the Main Roster?

2017 WWE Predictions: Which NXT Superstars Will Go to the Main Roster?

2,109 views

TRENDING

The biggest question for any NXT superstar seems to be when they will be called up to the main roster. Every year, buzz starts around the Royal Rumble for potential candidates to make surprise appearances as one of the 30 entrants. That momentum carries into the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania and spills over into the Raw after WrestleMania, where a lot of NXT call-ups tend to take place. All throughout the year, stars from developmental transition to NXT and make room for more wrestlers to come up to the Raw and SmackDown brands. With the reintroduction of the brand split this year, the need for more stars has doubled, so while the ink is still wet switching from 2016 to 2017, let’s try to predict which NXT wrestlers might graduate from the minor leagues to the big time at some point this year.

Asuka

I’m convinced the only reason Asuka isn’t on the main roster already is because WWE doesn’t really know what direction to take the NXT women quite yet and they don’t trust anybody to fully take the reigns from her as champion. While I maintain my prediction that Ember Moon will be the one to dethrone her, it’s one thing to have a new champion at the head of the class and another thing entirely to also ask her to take on the responsibility as the primary star to draw crowds. Asuka is currently a big fish in a small pond and can fit in easily with the Raw and SmackDown women, with my guess being she’d go to Raw sometime shortly after WrestleMania as a heel to be part of the opposition against Bayley and Sasha Banks. On either brand, she’ll succeed and could potentially win that show’s respective title in the next coming months.

Billie Kay and Peyton Royce

In a relatively short amount of time, Billie Kay and Peyton Royce went from extras who were hanging out from time to time and losing most of their matches to being the two top heels on the brand. In part, that was due to the talent pool being drained of a lot of bigger names like Alexa Bliss, Nia Jax and Bayley, but it’s also because of their progress. They both look more like legitimate WWE superstars now than ever before and I’ve got a feeling they won’t be hanging around the yellow brand by 2018. One of the main reasons I can see them jumping up to Raw and/or SmackDown is because of the rumored women’s tournament. If that does indeed happen, we could see an influx of new signees in that division, but WWE isn’t going to trust them to go straight to the main roster over their NXT women. While folks like Evie, Deonna Purrazzo, Kimber Lee, Heidi Lovelace and others are placed on NXT to learn the WWE way of things, a woman like Danielle Kamela will move from developmental to the NXT roster as well, leaving room for Kay and Royce to go to Raw and SmackDown as they’ll be seasoned enough to trust in those spots. The same might apply to Liv Morgan and Aliyah, but I can’t imagine them gutting the entire roster and replacing nearly all of the women, so with 3 names already on this list, that’s still a decent amount.

Bobby Roode

I don’t think anybody would really complain if Bobby Roode showed up tomorrow on Raw or SmackDown, would they? That being said, I wouldn’t get my hopes up that it will happen any time particularly soon. I do still think he’s going to be called up at some point in the year, but my guess is this won’t happen until later on after the summer when things grow a little stagnant and they’ve hit some creative roadblocks. Of course, a big factor that might speed this up is if there are any injuries. If this is another year like 2015 where people go down left and right, WWE will likely start tapping NXT to make up for the depleted roster and Bobby Roode will definitely be one of the frontline wrestlers who they could trust to get audiences to pay attention. Barring circumstances like that, I would shoot for autumn time frame after Roode has had a lengthy title reign.

Buddy Murphy

This is a bit of a longshot, but what else is he going to do? His girlfriend (Alexa Bliss) is on the main roster and while that doesn’t guarantee anything, it does sometimes factor in. If Bliss continues to be as awesome as she’s been lately, she might work up enough goodwill to request to have her boyfriend on the same brand as she is, if not just for a morale boost, and they may go ahead and grant that to her. Buddy Murphy is far from a priority in any capacity, but just because you’re on the main roster doesn’t mean you’re some world title contender. If that were the case, we wouldn’t have Darren Young, The Golden Truth, Bo Dallas, Curt Hawkins and other jobbers. Buddy Murphy could be the latest in a long line of NXT guys who advances to somewhere like SmackDown so he can lose in front of a bigger crowd.

#DIY

All signs pointed to Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa coming up to the main roster in 2016 as they were included in the Cruiserweight Classic and mentioned numerous times in promos leading up to the creation of the division on Raw. With 205 Live, it seemed like a foregone conclusion they would be asked to join that roster, yet right around the same time, they won the NXT Tag Team Championship. At some point in the year—maybe even as soon as NXT TakeOver: San Antonio—The Authors of Pain or SAnitY will dethrone them, leaving them open to rejoining the cruiserweight division as they will no longer be needed to defend a title on NXT.

The Revival

I’m more confident Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson will move up to the main roster than almost every other name on this list save for the one directly below them coming up next. They’ve already held the tag titles twice, feuded with pretty much everybody and reached a point where they’ve proven themselves capable. If NXT is 50% a regular branded show, they don’t have many options left of things to do, and if the other 50% is a training ground, what more do they need to do to impress the brass? Whether it’s Raw or SmackDown, I wholeheartedly expect to see The Revival filling out the tag team roster somewhere in early 2017, particularly if we have a few duos split up (like Cesaro and Sheamus).

Samoa Joe

As mentioned above, if I had to pick one person who I thought was a guarantee above all the rest, it would be Samoa Joe. Recent events with John Cena challenging AJ Styles have made me back off a bit on my previous prediction that Joe would turn up at the Royal Rumble event itself, but with Shinsuke Nakamura facing Bobby Roode at NXT TakeOver: San Antonio, that seems to indicate their feud has finally ended, leaving that still open for a possibility. My face won’t show any surprise if Joe pops up as one of the 30 entrants in the Royal Rumble or he interferes in either the title match here or at the Elimination Chamber, but I definitely will be shocked if the Raw and SmackDown after WrestleMania pass by and he’s still not made any appearances on the main roster. By that point, I’ll have to admit that I have no idea what they’re doing, as I think we’ll be seeing Joe much, much sooner than that.

Shinsuke Nakamura

Half of me expects Nakamura to stay well into the middle of the year and the other half thinks they’re going to bump him up a lot earlier just out of impatience. I think the latter could be a problem unless there are actual plans for him to start feuds with particular wrestlers, so if that’s the case, I’d rather see them hold off until there’s more of a need for him. Sometimes, WWE can front-load the year with call-ups and then after a few weeks, they’ve lost interest in some of them. Just ask The Ascension, Apollo Crews, Baron Corbin and The Vaudevillains what happened to them after they came up too early. Keep in mind that Nakamura didn’t make his NXT in-ring debut until April 1st of 2016, so it won’t have even been a full year of him in the company until around WrestleMania. To come into WWE in the span of 12 months and work your way up to being a two-time NXT champion is a testament to how well he’ll adapt when he’s brought up to the main roster if he’s given the right opportunities to continue to grow. It’s bound to happen in 2017, so just be patient if it hasn’t happened by SummerSlam.

Tye Dillinger

Recently, rumors were floating around that Dillinger could be coming up to the SmackDown roster to start a feud with The Miz over the Intercontinental Championship, but nothing seems to be really pointing in that direction—at least, nothing I’m aware of. It still could happen, but with so many people on Raw and SmackDown fighting for relevant spots on the WrestleMania card, I’d place his chances of coming up before Orlando at around 10%. Afterward, on the other hand, is a completely different story, as he could very well be a post-Mania debut. There’s a catch with Dillinger, though: he’s the type of guy they could keep in NXT because he’s so good that they want him to stick around to teach the newer people who need a veteran to learn from. In that scenario, Dillinger may be staying in Florida for a long while, possibly even the entirety of 2017. The downside to that would be the lack of him on the main roster, but the benefit would be that his chances to win the NXT Championship would go up dramatically. It should be a good year for The Perfect 10 one way or another, but if I had to bet, I’d say he’ll show up on the SmackDown brand sometime shortly following WrestleMania.

Those are my picks, but do you think there are any other stars who could jump from NXT to the main roster? Should I have tossed Wesley Blake’s name in with Buddy Murphy, or am I shortsighted in not including The Authors of Pain? Tell us your predictions in the comments below!

- Advertisment -

LATEST NEWS

- Advertisment -

Related Articles