I have to admit I was slightly shocked when Mick Foley selected Finn Balor so early on Tuesday night in the WWE Draft. I was equally surprised when Baron Corbin’s name was called so early.
Both superstars will impact the main roster, but there were others who deserved to hear their names selected well before these two upstarts – mainly Kevin Owens and Cesaro.
What WWE is doing is admirable – calling up talent from NXT while cultivating a new chapter in company history. Now that there are so few wrestlers left from the Attitude Era and performers like Kane, Big Show and Mark Henry appear closer to retirement with each passing day, a new generation of superstars is ushered in for the transition.
Think of it as The Gap with its black, white and gray transition colors.
When something changes, wrestling fans hope it is for the good. In this case, the talent rising from NXT is exciting and gives us all reason for hope. But with this new found “hope” comes questions. Did WWE make the right decision in bringing Corbin, Apollo Crews and others to the main roster, or was it a panic move?
Do they truly have a future as potential champions, or are they destined to be a fixture in the mid card for the next decade?
We all remember The Nexus as a renegade stable of former NXT upstarts who took WWE by storm to create a buzz about the newly formed promotion (formerly known as ECW).
Led by Wade Barrett, with notably wrestlers like Husky Harris (Bray Wyatt), David Otunga, Heath Slater, Justin Gabriel, Michael Tarver, Darren Young, and some guy named Skip Sheffield who we all know now as Ryback, they created waves for about all of a year.
Dissention, bad booking and no idea of how to create more conflict with other WWE superstars led to its demise. Add CM Punk’s inclusion in a “takeover” type situation, and one of the better ideas of the past decade fell apart,
The best thing to come out of this concept was the rebirth of Wyatt, The Shield and a gimmick Slater and the Social Outcasts continue to push on the fans.
WWE is attempting to create a buzz by moving more talent from NXT to its main roster with Baron Corbin and Apollo Crews being the latest to make the jump. The company has had major success with the rise of Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn and of course, the Women’s Division.
And before long, Samoa Joe will join the front line.
These moves are just one reason why John Cena wasn’t one of the first picks on Tuesday night. It is also a reason why this new brand split and roster division had better work.
Enzo and Cass are big time these days, thanks in part to a great hook and some props from Cena. But don’t be surprised if the two grab the world tag titles any time soon. This is a team that needs a long run, not a short stay. Still, you have to like the momentum they have built in a short amount of time.
If they stumble, it won’t be because of their undoing, it will be because the company dropped the ball.
The last thing the McMahons need is another failure after promoting big changes, eliminating The Authority and adding Daniel Bryan and Foley as general managers of Smackdown and Raw, respectively.
While there is no reason to believe Owens and Zayn and Wyatt won’t continue on their climb toward title success and Corbin and Balor have real potential in becoming main event stars, the jury might still be out on Crews – who at the moment looks much like Shelton Benjamin with more talent.
Benjamin could have been a much bigger deal – a world champion and a major player when he was part of WWE’s machine. He was poorly booked, wasn’t successful as a heel and eventually parted ways and went on to bigger things in other promotions.
How WWE plans to book Crews and Corbin will tell fans how their futures will pan out. I suspect Corbin could be a title contender long before Crews sees a title match. There could be issues with booking others, namely Dana Brooke, Paige, Zayn and potentially American Alpha who were drafted this past week.
Did WWE make decisions to call up NXT talent because they were ready or was it a knee-jerk reaction from fear of not making a splash with the Draft and brand split?
Bayley is still out there, waiting to make the move to the next level. If the creative team cannot get it right with the ones they have chosen to move forward, we can only imagine how they will handle the talent that comes after this new wave of WWE superstars.
