WWE’s developmental process has never been more streamlined. Gone are the days of the global leader in sports-entertainment plucking its prospects from territories like Ohio Valley Wrestling or Florida Championship Wrestling. Today, just about all of WWE’s talent comes through the WWE Performance Center before reporting to NXT and eventually the main roster. For those who came from the independent scene, the process is relatively expedited, while those who are former collegiate athletes have longer journeys to television. WWE has put an emphasis on the latter recently, as the launch of WWE NIL in December 2021 has increased the amount of “homegrown” stars in the Performance Center.ย
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Considering these athletes are being transformed into wrestlers within WWE’s system, there has been significantly more consistency with how they are presented on the main roster. NXT now operates as a true developmental system compared to years past when it functioned more as a third brand and an indie haven of sorts.
That consistency has gone both ways, as main roster stars have regularly popped down to NXT for a one-off program. The biggest example of that came a couple of weeks ago when WWE World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins defended his new prize against Bron Breakker on NXT TV.
“I felt a lot of hunger to get to the next level. I was happy to see that,” Rollins reflected on his NXT return onย Out of Character. “We were going through a period with NXT where there was a lot of complacency and people talking about, ‘I’d rather stay in NXT, I don’t want to go to the main roster.’ That always rubbed me the wrong way. When I went down there this past time, I felt a different energy and I felt people were excited to come to the main roster and take their careers to the next level. That got me hyped.”
Rollins is referencing the “black and gold” era of NXT, when many of its top stars elected to remain on the brand rather than going to Monday Night Raw or WWE SmackDown. The typical NXT trajectory would see talent wrestle in numerous feuds before winning a championship. Whenever they lost that championship, the main roster call-up would come almost immediately after.
This changed in 2019 when both Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa opted to stay on NXT after their NXT Championship reigns ended. Other top talent like Adam Cole and Kyle O’Reilly ultimately left the company altogether after their NXT runs ended, heading to AEW instead of joining the main roster.
Much of this main roster distaste came from how NXT alumni were utilized on the red and blue brands. Former NXT Champions like Keith Lee and Karrion Kross were infamously rebranded significantly, leading them to lose all of their momentum before getting released just months after their main roster call-ups.
