- 6 weeks ago
Even during NXT's golden era, not every idea was money...
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00So I really like NXT. Out of all the WWE brands, it feels like the one that is happy to
00:04take the
00:04most risks, and sometimes it's totally crazy. Of course, now they have the relationship with TNA,
00:10we're doing the whole, oh my gosh, here come the other promotion angle. It's just fun, man.
00:14Wrestling is meant to be fun. Of course, the idea of NXT is still to take brand new wrestlers and
00:18turn them into superstars, and we have seen many of these. We look at Oba Febby right now. If that
00:23guy doesn't main event WrestleMania one day, something has gone very wrong. Sadly, on occasion,
00:27however, there are people that should be pushed up to the main roster, and for one reason,
00:32it never happens. So sit down with me as we do go through this, because I am Simon Miller,
00:37and he's 15 more experiments from WWE Developmental that didn't really work out.
00:42Number 15, Blue Pants. So this goes back to the black and gold NXT, where once again it was just
00:47nuts, and even though a lot of what we saw in the ring was essentially the independent scene just
00:51shone in WWE, every now and then somebody would come along that just stood out, and we did something
00:56fun with them. Enter Lever Blue Pants Baits. Now, you could call her a cult hero, but that doesn't
01:02really do her justice, or underline just how remarkably over she was. You absolutely shouldn't
01:06sleep on this, though, because she had so many cool moments in NXT, she just knew how to interact
01:11with that audience. Amazingly, she only wrestled 10 times on the show in 2015, and when she was first
01:16introduced, it was to take on Carmella and ultimately lose. In fact, she lost all but one of
01:21the matches, but once again the fans didn't care, they were just into the gimmick. And they're not
01:26entirely sure what did happen. It sort of felt like both sides fell out over something, but that's
01:30utter speculation, but either way they cut ties, and we never saw her in NXT again. You can't forget
01:35what she did do, though, and a great example of this was not actually a match, but a surprise
01:39appearance alongside the Vaude villains at TakeOver Brooklyn in August. It was the biggest crowd
01:43of the brand's history up to that point, and they went utterly berserk for Blue Pants, as she became
01:48the counter to Alexa Bliss's interference. I tell you too, if Sasha Banks and Bayley hadn't also
01:53wrestled on this car where they essentially changed the game, nobody actually would have got a better
01:57reaction, because once again, Lever Bates was massively over. And of course, you never say
02:02never in wrestling so we can cross our fingers, but if WWE was ever able to get this going again,
02:07well, they absolutely should. Number 14, Lana. So we all know how great the pairing of Lana and
02:12Rusev were, and their highlight in WWE is probably when they came out at WrestleMania to face John Cena,
02:17and they were in a flippin' tank. And I often think about this, it is essentially living the dream.
02:23After a while, Vince McMahon couldn't help but break them up, because that was his favourite
02:26thing to do, which saw Lana go on a little bit of a journey to try and find herself.
02:30Eventually, this meant going back to NXT in 2017, and when April rolled around, well,
02:35she did try a new gimmick at some live events, which essentially we could describe as
02:40a danced, focused persona. There was a mystery woman with her as well, and the only way to
02:44describe this is Lana put on a bunch of denim, and yes, she then wiggled her hips all the way
02:49to
02:49the ring, and it was just a little bit awkward. Now, I don't know if that was the intent or
02:54just
02:54how it went down, but the one thing I do know, and you can see this on the internet right
02:57now,
02:58is that the reaction to this was not overly good. In fact, fans thought it was pretty damn bad.
03:02I think mostly it was because we'd already found the perfect role for Lana, and now for some reason
03:06we were trying to eek away from it. And the main word that was used to describe this was
03:10cringey. I mean, it was a little bit cringey, but fair play to Lana, because I doubt she came up
03:15with this, and at least she committed. But yeah, that was never going to work. I mean,
03:19what even was it? What was the benefit of dancing to the ring? Nobody ever told us.
03:23The music was also pretty darn weird. There was an immediate retooling, because before long she was
03:28just put in a ball gown and made to look more elegant, and that really was more in keeping with
03:32the theme and persona needed. But yeah, in terms of ideas we tried to get over, and ones we then
03:37threw out the window, well, there's few that went faster than this. At 13, Marcus Lewis goes bald,
03:42and then he goes mad. So I know a lot about being bald, because I am bald myself, and yes,
03:46there is a bald agenda in wrestling right now. Have you heard the terrible things they shout at
03:51Dax, Harwood, and Ricochet? It ain't right, man. And don't forget, one day Mother Nature is gonna come
03:55for you. A lot of people do say that NXT was in its golden era from 2014 to 2016, because
04:01not only did
04:01they have a bunch of stars, but every single takeover show they did was actually excellent,
04:05to the point even the main roster would be like, wait a minute, we don't have this kind of freedom,
04:10what the flub is going on? This was only really true, however, though, if you were considered
04:13important in your role, because the people just below this, well, my gosh, they got thrown some
04:18crazy stories. One of these did come in the former Legionnaires tag wrestler Marcus Lewis,
04:23who went through quite the transformation after he did lose to Enzo Amore. Their whole feud was about
04:28who looked better. So yes, after Marcus was defeated, he had to get rid of his hair,
04:33hair, and apparently that sent him over the edge. Because he basically became Kane or a Gene Snitsky,
04:38I suppose, from the mid-2000s, and yes, he turned on partner Sylvester Laforte, because once again,
04:43he couldn't handle this change. He then had a program with Tyler Breeze at the end of 2014,
04:48and of course, lost and lost and lost, because, there's no other way for me to put this,
04:52he didn't have any hair. That's about as deep as it went as well, and no, I did not mean
04:57that as a pun.
04:58This pattern just continued on until he was released in 2016, and sadly, that wasn't a
05:02surprise. I mean, you can find snippets of this on the internet, and I doubt anybody is gonna go,
05:07man, there was potential with this. I think somebody just accidentally sneaked on the creative
05:12sheet, just translated it as, okay, we'll make him bored and crazy. Let's not do this again.
05:17It was dumb.
05:18Number 12, Angelo Dawkins.
05:20So Angelo Dawkins has been around a long time. In fact, he was in NXT all the way back in
05:252012.
05:26And in case you can't do maths, as of me talking to you, that is 13 years ago.
05:31It's an amazing tale, though, because it is a story of perseverance, patience, and consistency,
05:35and right now, he is better than ever. Like, the Street Profits are a great tag team,
05:39and Montez Ford has all the potential in the world, but so does Dawkins. That man can go.
05:44Of course, before he got into this duo, though, Angelo was being booked as a singles wrestler,
05:48and his gimmick was kind of,
05:50I am just so happy to be here, even though I keep losing.
05:54He was always super happy, he wore a backpack and headphones for some reason,
05:57and he would just smile and dance before literally being carted out of the arena after
06:02suffering yet another defeat. So if we are gonna label this what it was, it was essentially a
06:06losing gimmick, but he didn't care, and that was meant to make you like him. I suppose it must have
06:10worked, because after a while, somebody did pair him with Montez, and now he's a mainstay on the
06:14main roster. But once again, you can go back and watch this and report back to me,
06:18do you think this guy was ever gonna main event WrestleMania? I think not.
06:22Number 11, Nikos Rikos.
06:24So you can see a picture of Mr. Rikos or Mr. Rikos potentially on the screen right now,
06:29and yep, that is some interesting ring gear, but at least you know where he was from,
06:33he was Greek.
06:34Sadly, Nikos didn't do all that much, and essentially was a one-and-done kind of a dude,
06:39although he did get beaten by Keith Lee during the Limitless One's Breakout 2019.
06:43He actually got a final shot for the WWE proper as one half of the inadvertently
06:47hilarious tag team, the East Hampton Polo Boys, who quite literally appeared on Raw.
06:53They were essentially a modern-day Mean Street posse, and yes, were brought in just so the
06:58Viking Raiders could absolutely pillage him. And ever since then, he's been quite the regular
07:01on the independent circuit, and even had a couple of matches in 2025 for Titan Championship
07:06wrestling in New Jersey. So that mother Hubbard is still going. Doesn't actually feel like he's
07:10going to make it back to NXT, but the guy that's actually from Sparta, New Jersey quite clearly
07:15does enjoy professional wrestling. Sometimes that's all you need. Your goal doesn't have
07:19to be to become the biggest wrestler ever. You can just be happy with bouncing around.
07:24Number 10, Oliver Gray.
07:25So this is a weird one for me to talk about, because Oliver Gray is British legend Joel Redmond,
07:30who I have wrestled and actually trained with, so I can tell you firsthand over on these shores,
07:35well, that mother Hubbard knows what he's doing.
07:37If you do go back to 2012, though, he was actually one half of the NXT Tag Team Champions,
07:41and yes, he stood alongside Pac, who of course then was Adrian Neville.
07:46The duo somewhat unexpectedly defeated the Wyatt family in a tournament final in February 2013,
07:51but very sadly, Gray, as he was known at the time, suffered a horrendous injury when he went
07:56down with an anterior cruciate ligament problem. It meant that Bo Dallas had to step in as a
08:00makeshift champion, and then these two did lose the belts to Luke Harper and Eric Rowan in May.
08:04The issue once, 12 months later, when Oliver finally returned to NXT, it had just changed
08:09so much, he had essentially been lost on the shuffle. I mean, Neville had gone on to become
08:13the heavyweight champion of the brand at that time, and really no one ever sat down and figured
08:18out how Oliver Gray could fit back in. He did fall short in a battle royal to determine a number
08:22one contender for his former friend's gold, and really, we should have let him win that,
08:26the story would have told itself. He did soon get released, but again, Joel Redmond did return
08:31to these shores, and went over to all Japan, and he absolutely kills it. And I can tell you
08:35first-hand, if you ever do see him in live in person, you'll be like, oh my gosh, that dude
08:40can
08:40go. Number nine, Tim Weiss. And this is actually amazing, because Tim Weiss is actually a former
08:45Bayon Leverkusen youth goalkeeper. He's also one of these dudes that somehow combines soccer with
08:50wrestling, and they seem to be increasing as the years go on. He got offered a spot in the
08:53Performance Center back in 2014, probably because even by that point, WW was going, do you know what we
08:59want to make more of, athletes that become sports entertainers? Let's start here. Now,
09:04his big break kind of came in 2017, when Weiss joined Sheamus and Cesaro to defeat Bo Dallas
09:09and the Shining Stars, and yes, that went down at the Munich house show, which makes all the sense
09:13in the world. He'd also gotten way bigger at this point, because of course, he wanted to become a
09:17superstar, but all of this got really bad, because it turned out this match was going to be a one
09:21and
09:22done. We never really heard much else from him after that, and by 2017, he had left the
09:26organization completely. It's such a shame we can't report more on this, because who knows what
09:30his potential was? Who knows what would have happened? I mean, by the time the NIL program
09:35began, it always felt like sports people got way more leeway than anybody else. I guess we will
09:40never know. Number eight, the original Ascension. So many fans do forget there was actually the
09:45original Ascension, who were not the Ascension that would eventually make it to the main roster.
09:49In the early 2010s, they were already doing their act in FCW when they were brought across
09:54to NXT, and this was Conor O'Brien and Kenneth Cameron, or Bran from TNA, and the guy that would
10:00eventually go on to become Conor. The thing is, though, this version had an entrance that was
10:04seriously impressive for the time, as they spliced P-recorded B-roll with live footage, and they just
10:09came across as so damn menacing. You can go back and look at message boards from the time,
10:14everybody was like, well, we should call these two dudes up, they're probably going to reignite
10:18the tag team scene. There was also a mini feud with the Usos in 2012, and in between all that,
10:23man, the Ascension just absolutely dominated smaller teams, and that made them even more
10:28popular with the crowd. They also looked like they were way bigger than most of the people
10:31that NXT were using at the time, before all of a sudden, it just fell flat. Victor was brought
10:36in instead, and they still did make a name for themselves up on Raw, but when these two were
10:41acting as the team, well, you do have to say it didn't work out, because it quite literally
10:45never walked out. It was so damn strange, because they really did feel main roster ready,
10:49that's the problem with wrestling, you just never know.
10:52Number seven, the Ascension 2.0. So we should probably talk about the Victor and Connor version
10:56of this as well, because once again, they were essentially booked like the road warriors and
11:00told to squash people, and surprise, surprise, that got over. Doesn't matter what era you're
11:04talking about, doing such booking is always going to work. They took very little time to plow
11:08through the majority of the competition too, and they were fixtures of the early WWE
11:12TakeOver Network specials, and eventually became an unstoppable pair of NXT Tag Team
11:17Champions. They were booked as heels, but were beloved as babyfaces in the full cell home
11:21because of their work, and actually held those titles for one day short of a full year, before
11:26they put over Callisto and Sin Cara. The only reason we do throw them in here though, is because
11:30the idea is always that you do get promoted from NXT to the main roster, and absolutely smash
11:35it. Man, Vince McMahon didn't have any interest in that. In fact, he found out they were meant
11:40to be an homage to Legion of Doom, so they made them cosplay Legion of Doom, when they
11:45lost, and lost, and lost, and lost. Before long, they both got released. This made no
11:50sense, and kind of told you that nobody from Raw and SmackDown was actually watching the
11:54developmental brand, otherwise you would not have booked them like this.
11:57Number six, The Mechanics. So here's another name that people have forgotten due to the
12:01passage of time. Before they were FTR, before they were Revival, Cash and Dax were simply
12:06called The Mechanics. And do you know who came up with this gimmick? None other than
12:10the one and only Dusty Rhodes. Now of course, FTR would go on to become one of the best tag
12:14teams of all time, but the only reason we put The Mechanics in here, is because it only
12:19lasted for two matches. The commentators would tell us they were The Mechanics, because they
12:23were going to strip apart their opponents piece by piece, as if they were an engine or something,
12:28and that they just didn't care. I suppose Triple H saw this and went, man, we can do way
12:32more with this, and they are a throwback to the old school, when he dubbed them The Revival,
12:37and basically we never look back. You do have to throw out Dusty Rhodes' name again though,
12:40because once again, he just knew these two people would work together, and my gosh he
12:45was right. I mean, look where they are now. But in terms of their first NXT idea, or their
12:50developmental concept, well, it was a little bit of a bust.
12:53Number five, Sarray. A victim of bad timing and even worse creative, Sarray's NXT run went
12:58from bad to worse, despite NXT rescuing itself from the self-imposed death grip of the Capitol
13:03Wrestling Center. Following in 2021, when she got her killer finisher over, Sarray re-emerged
13:08in 2022 with an extraordinary reductive schoolgirl gimmick that was just a little bit controversial.
13:14It did get worse too, because all of a sudden she told us that she was gifted a medallion with
13:19magic powers from grandma, and that it would be this medallion that would take her to the top
13:23of the industry. Now that part I like. I like goofy wrestling. Some people say it's for life.
13:28Sadly though, she instantly lost on level up, which made you scratch your head,
13:32because why the flub wasn't this magic medallion working? Sarray still had to pretend though that
13:36this was her future, and when Tiffany Stratton found out about this, she stole it, and Sarray was
13:41devastated. Once again, I can't lie, I think this was brilliant, and this entry shouldn't be in this
13:45list. Clearly NXT management know this was a little bit silly, because they did end the whole thing,
13:49and I'm pretty sure they told us the reason it changed is because Sarray transformed herself
13:54into a different version after going through some kind of special portal. Now that may not be true,
14:00when it was going on, I was a little bit worried I may have taken drugs. It was definitely not
14:03believable though, which was always going to rub some people the wrong way, but man, if you can't
14:07have a little bit of entertainment with wrestling, then what the flub are we doing? She then left NXT
14:11in 2023. Number four, Hugo Knox. Stuart Tomlinson, as he was no, actually left the UK, where I am right
14:17now
14:17in 2013 to head to Orlando, Florida, because he wanted to follow his WWE dreams. Now this is another
14:23one of these cool stories, because Tomlinson had actually played in golf or crew Alexandra,
14:27Burton Albion, Barrow, Port Vell, and Ultringham, and somewhere along the way, he had built some
14:32serious size, and this dude was jacked, and it looked like he belonged in the Performance Center.
14:37It took about 12 months to get up to speed before he did make his in-ring debut,
14:40and actually he notched up an impressive 62 matches, when WWE just released him in 2016.
14:46The truth is, when you do go to watch this, he kind of struggled to connect with the audience,
14:50which of course you do need in wrestling, although he did briefly sneak onto television
14:54to lose to the Vaude villains alongside one Tucker Knight. So I wouldn't really call this a failed
14:57experiment, and more just somebody that gave it a go, and it didn't really work out. Although it
15:02wasn't great we changed his name to Hugo Knox. I mean, what does that mean? It sounds a little bit
15:07silly, and like you just grabbed two random things and stuck them together. Number three,
15:12Duke Hudson, poker player. So Duke Hudson, poker player, didn't exactly make sense
15:16in its own context. However, there was such a bizarre normality to a wrestler having an
15:20outlandish gimmick in NXT, that everybody just nodded their heads and went, alright,
15:24well we're just going to accept it and see what happens. Now I actually think this was a help to
15:27Duke at first during the 2.0 era, because for a little while there, it sort of felt like every
15:32single wrestler just had the same gimmick, when all of a sudden Hudson got recast as the man who
15:36literally held all the cards. We learned this through a series of vignettes, as we were told very
15:40strongly, don't forget that a poker player can absolutely take these skills and transfer them
15:46to the ring. I mean, that sounds nuts to me, but what do I know? It's kind of funny as
15:50well,
15:50because do not forget he was just randomly Brendan Vink on the main roster during the pandemic before
15:54that was dropped too, and no, this did not translate all that well at all. I didn't actually
15:59mind it when he started to host in-ring card games, because once again, goofy wrestling for life,
16:03but fans didn't like it. In fact, they got a little bit annoyed. Once again, this was a gimmick that
16:07was
16:07dropped before Duke Hudson went back to school and joined Chase U, before he got released in 2025,
16:13and I will never understand that one, because he was such an important part of that act,
16:18and finally had gotten himself over. I tell you, man, sometimes wonders never cease.
16:23Number two, Jason Jordan in other tag teams. So there have been select cases in WWE history,
16:27where a wrestler keeps finding himself in a tag team, and then breaks up those tag teams,
16:31because said wrestler just wants to be a single star. It isn't really a comparable example,
16:36but Steve Austin loved to do this. I mean, during his career, he teamed up with Shawn Michaels,
16:40Do Love and The Undertaker, and after a few matches, he always turned around and gave them
16:44a stone-cold stunner, because DTA Mother Hubbard. Bad News Brand was another guy that just turned on
16:49his colleagues at a moment's notice, and he even walked out of a Survivor Series match.
16:53He couldn't be asked. Now, when it comes to Jason Jordan, we all know he found his kindred spirit
16:57with Chad Gable in NXT, because American Alpha, especially if we are talking about the developmental brand,
17:02burned brighter than maybe any other team that we've ever seen. I mean, if you have never
17:06cast your eyes on them, you have to do it right now. I mean, the potential these two guys had,
17:11it was endless. Sadly, he did have to retire in 2018, but the gimmicks we tried before this
17:16kind of summed up that at one point, it looked like it was never going to work. Because before
17:20all this, he had a team with CJ Parker, and that didn't work out, when we tried with Ty Dillinger,
17:24and that fell by the wayside too. It was absolutely a period where people were scratching their heads,
17:29going, uh, what are we going to do with Jason? And even when he first teamed up with Gable,
17:33the fans were like, well, we've already tried this. Why are we trying it again? In fact,
17:37it was Chad Gable that had to push this and say, please, Jason Jordan, I want to give it a
17:40go.
17:41When he finally worked him over, and thank goodness he did. Again, if you want to see a
17:45bunch of five-star matches, go watch American Alpha. They are one of the best of modern times.
17:50Number one, Liv Morgan. Now, of course, in 2025, we all know that Liv Morgan is going to become an
17:55even bigger star than she already is. That awfully timed injury she suffered a few months ago really
18:00derailed her, but it's not going to stop her when she does return. She'll be a babyface and probably
18:05be the women's champion before the end of the year. Or maybe she even wins the flipping Royal Rumble.
18:09The real name Gianna Daddio, and yes, I'm not making that up, used to take absolute pelters from fans
18:14though, mostly when she was down at NXT doing this gimmick. Now, the NXT crowd actually liked what she
18:19was doing as the babyface New Jersey character, but what they seemed to have a problem with was that her
18:25matches weren't of the standard expector thanks to those that had come before her. And yes,
18:29that was essentially the Four Horsewomen and Oscar. Some people even said that it all felt too similar
18:33to Carmella, and that they didn't really understand what the future was going to be. Of course,
18:37she then got called up to the main roster in the Riots squad, and while that was okay,
18:41well, it was a little bit widdly-piddly too. Now, the one thing I do want to point out here
18:45is that
18:45you should always take everything you see in NXT with a pinch of salt, because you are quite literally
18:49watching people get their sea legs. Often, they can be so green and not ready for TV, but the only
18:54way to
18:54get ready for TV is by having matches on TV. It's a chicken and egg scenario. If anybody is the
18:59poster
19:00child, though, for allowing somebody to have some time to develop in developmental, it is Liv Morgan.
19:05I'm totally convinced by the end of 2026, she is going to be one of the biggest stars in the
19:09industry,
19:10and she has mad crossover appeal too. It is kind of nuts, though, if you do go back to watch
19:15what she
19:15was doing in Black and Gold NXT. It really felt like she didn't know what was coming around the corner,
19:20and then a few years later, she figured it all out. I'll be so intrigued to see what the
19:24conversation will be in about 12 months' time. I think most people will actually have to admit
19:28that she has come so far. So patience, my friends. Patience is a virtue. Know of any other experiments
19:34in NXT that didn't really work out the way that people intended? Well, make sure you let us know
19:38in the comments below. If we like the video, share the video, and subscribe. You can also click the
19:42video on the screen for the part one of this series. Otherwise, my friends, take care of yourself,
19:47and I will talk to you again very soon.