Does NXT Work Effectively To Produce Main Roster Talent?

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Raw for 19th July 2021 was an interesting one. The first Raw back in front of an audience and not a host of TV screens and John Cena's return but as well as this the undefeated NXT champion Karrion Kross made his debut on Raw and lost to Jeff Hardy. Now not to disrespect Jeff Hardy who is one of my favourites of all time but on the 5th July 2021 on Main Event he lost to Veer who is one of Jinder Mahal's bodyguards. Jeff Hardy is not positioned as a threat let alone the person to end an undefeated streak of a champion. It got me thinking, does this match represent more than just a strange booking decision and instead showcase a larger issue when it comes to the synchronisation of NXT and the Main Roster of WWE when it comes to booking philosophy and talents that can be booked and turned into stars.

First it's important to look at Karrion Kross. I haven't been a fan of his NXT run as I don't think he fits in overly well with the show. His entrance is overproduced and while his matches were boring to me I could understand that with the main roster production levels he could look like a star. So it surprised me that he came out with no Scarlett, half assed lights and just walking down to the ring looked like he was bored. Everything that made him feel special has been taken away it's just odd. It also doesn't help this was in 1:40, he lost his debut match on Raw and the first match he lost in WWE as a whole in a nothing one minute forty seconds. This was surprising being his debut I thought you'd want to make a good first impression with him but I guess not. I speaks to a lot of former NXT champions and not exactly being booked like former faces of WWE's third brand. Looking at it of the 18 people to hold the NXT championship only four have held world titles on the main roster being Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens, Finn Balor and Drew McIntyre and if you think about it Drew already has a main roster one years before and Finn only held the belt a day due to injury which doesn't help the track record. Looking at it the same amount of NXT champions to become main roster world champions have been released (being the former Neville, Andrade, Aleister Black and Bo Dallas) which is a head scratching statistic. NXT and association the WWE Performance Centre was set up to develop the stars of the future but it doesn't seem to be working.

Maybe it's the main roster booking and not path of successions. Triple H previously said that call ups have 6 months worth of booking ideas behind each call up (they don't) but with how plans get dropped quicker then they are created. The liked of Ricochet, Angel Garza, Drew Gulak and countless others what was their 6 month plan and feud? I strikes of NXT and the main roster not being in sync with what talent they want. Is it a case of Triple H only looking to hire talent that fit NXT and not the main roster? You'd think that the company as a whole would have a system they'd all agree on talent to bring in develop on NXT and the Performance Centre (PC) to be as good for TV as possible and then move this talent to the main roster into a feud of some kind to establish them but this doesn't seem the case. 

It was reported a while back that Vince McMahon and Bruce Prichard went to the Performance Centre and I wonder if what we are seeing is the result of how they felt. I am interested in the next few weeks and months who gets called up and what gimmicks in NXT get changed as a result of this. While a good idea to synchronise talent looks and philosophies who's to say Vince won't go back in a month and not like the changes and change it all again. There's no future proofing the plans it just seems to be a scatterbrain and just not really thinking through how to use arguably for in ring talent their most talented roster.

But who knows maybe Triple H and his yellow brand will continue to suffer and now not be referenced by the main roster for their failure to run off AEW. You have to think if AEW keeps getting stronger and stronger and rumours of talks with CM Punk are successful and/or Daniel Bryan jumps ship that NXT will suffer for a while yet. But that remains to be seen.  

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