It’s no secret that NXT is currently one of the hottest things going in WWE today. The TakeOver specials frequently upstage the regular WWE pay-per-views and their television shows consistently receive rave reviews. It is a place where younger talent can hone their skills and shine, but it has even attracted the attention of older stars who want a resurgence to their career such as Rhino and The Brian Kendrick.
When the main roster is jealous of you, you know that you’re doing something right. This point is emphasized even more by the recent news that an NXT live event in California sold 4,100 tickets in just a few hours—an impressive amount in an impressive time frame.
Really, NXT is firing in all cylinders and that begs the question: what’s next? For many, the answer to that is a very simple one. It’s time for NXT to have a representation at WrestleMania.
Before we get too deep into things, it’s good to specify one thing: this is not a necessity. If WrestleMania goes by this year without a single NXT superstar making an appearance, it won’t be the end of the world. NXT has been thriving in all avenues, so their absence would not hurt them. It’s important to remember that NXT has never been featured on the card and it would not be a scenario where WWE is taking it away from the fans and downgrading the brand.
However, if WWE is so inclined to make this truly the biggest show of the year as it is always touted to be, then it would make sense for some of the spotlight to be shared and cast upon the premiere program for the WWE Network.
Another thing to note is that as great as NXT is, WWE cannot go overboard. When booking their fantasy cards, some fans get carried away and start to take logic out of the equation, suggesting things such as an NXT title match being one of the main events of the night or in some cases, even bringing up a large quantity of the developmental wrestlers to the main roster and including them in virtually every match.
There needs to be room to grow, though, and a rule that all promoters should follow is that you cannot get something back once you give it away. If you start at a 100% capacity, there’s nowhere to go but down, which will be viewed as a disappointment. It’s always best to start small and work up to the biggest possible outcome rather than backtrack. Many film sequels run into this problem and many wrestling programs do the same.
Because of this fundamental rule, WWE should find a balance between giving the NXT stars a chance to show off their skills, but also hold back on making it the most epic thing in the history of the company. That is where the pre-show comes into play.
WrestleMania is always huge, but this year it is going to be extremely long. Not only is the core pay-per-view four hours long, but the pre-show is two hours. That’s a lot of time to fill when there’s only been eight matches announced and the last thing that WWE needs to do is bog down the show by having too much filler that can be skipped. In particular, I’m referring to the video packages, which are obviously going nowhere, but don’t need to take up anywhere near as much time as they regularly do. While I would not go so far as to say they should be completely removed from the show in its entirety, I can’t in good conscience justify having a pronounced presence for them when the show is six hours long. If they are the majority of the pre-show, then they shouldn’t appear on the main show for even a second. If they are on the main show, the pre-show should be at least an hour of matches to counteract the hour of video packages and panelists talking about the upcoming events of the night.
Keeping that in mind, there should be an NXT match during the pre-show. It would be given adequate amount of time (roughly a half hour or so), which is more than enough to give fans a taste of what they’re missing if they aren’t watching every week. It also helps establish who some of these stars are before they move onto the main roster, as any introduction to the audience beyond the NXT show itself is a benefit—just look at the Royal Rumble with Rusev.
What are the negatives of putting NXT on the pre-show? Does it make the main roster look bad? No. Does it eat up too much time? Well, if you feel like you need to remind the audience of the feuds multiple times in the same night along with episodes of Raw, SmackDown, Main Event, Superstars, and all of the online content, then you’re just doing poor storytelling or the crowd is far too stupid to get it anyway, so timing isn’t an issue. Does it prevent main roster people from being booked on the card? Not when you have half of them thrown into the Intercontinental Championship match and everyone else will be in the Tag Team Championship match or the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.
On the other hand, what are the positives of NXT being on the pre-show? As if a quality match isn’t a good enough reason, it helps promote another brand and it doesn’t force any main roster stars to pull double duty to help fill up time. An added bonus is that the group of panelists as well as the commentary team can change, so it isn’t even the wrestlers themselves that can get a spot, but also Corey Graves, Jason Albert, Alex Riley, Rich Brennan and more.
So with that all established, the question I pose to everyone here is the much more fun aspect of this: what match should WWE book for NXT on the pre-show? Should it be for the NXT Championship? If so, who gets the shot against Kevin Owens? Should they #GiveDivasAChance and have Sasha Banks, Charlotte, Bayley and the other women tear the house down?
Tell us your ideas in the comments below!
