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Should the main roster really be the goal anymore?
Although that notion sounds ridiculous and counterproductive to the whole idea of NXT as a developmental system, it also seems to be true when considering what happens to superstars once they leave NXT. In fact, it is starting to feel like NXT superstars should hold off on their debut for as long as possible in order to avoid being used in a ridiculous way.
Of course, not everyone has suffered from terrible booking once they reached the main roster and that should be acknowledged, but there are other's that WWE just doesn't seem to know what to do with. Furthermore, WWE changes key parts of their gimmick that got them over in NXT, which helps them floundering on the main roster as well.
With that being said and WWE continuing to do the unthinkable with some the greatest superstars to ever enter NXT, here are five former NXT superstars that WWE is not doing justice to right now!
#5 Bayley
What is WWE doing with Bayley right now? Of course, that has been the question that fans and media pundits alike have been asking for over a year now, but WWE continues to do next to nothing with the former NXT champion and Raw Women's champion. In fact, she hasn't held The Women's title in over a year and has been the victim of start and stop pushes.
Another problem with Bayley on the main roster is the fact that WWE refuses to fully turn her heel. They teased Bayley turning heel several times against Alexa Bliss, and Sasha Banks, but they seem to always pump the brakes on it shortly after getting started, which is becoming really frustrating to watch.
WWE now has her teaming up with her best friend, Sasha Banks, which wouldn't be that bad if they didn't just waste two months on breaking the two women up. WWE then sent Banks and Bayley to therapy for three weeks, had them hash out their problems in a tag team match and now they are best friends again.
It just doesn't make any sense and it's killing the momentum this talented young lady used to have. To be completely honest, it's not all WWE's fault and could just be an indication that WWE needs to do a branch switch with Bayley, but until that finally happens, she's just going to be midcard fodder and an enhancement talent for other superstars.
#4 Bobby Roode
Another former NXT Champion that has had problems since coming to the main roster is Bobby Roode. Not only did Roode fail to make an impact from the get-go due to a variety of reasons, WWE also debuted him on the main roster as a babyface, which was a stark contrast from the heel character that made him popular.
Interestingly enough, WWE tried multiple times to get Roode over with the fans, even putting The United States Title on him for a time, but nothing seemed to work at all. WWE also have a problem with letting their opinions of superstars bleed into their storylines, which shows that the WWE writing staff see him as nothing more than a joke.
For example, WWE currently has Roode embroiled in a feud with Mojo Rawley, who has been seen mocking the former NXT Champion. Rawley even goes a step further by mocking Roode's Glorious gimmick, which really isn't going to do anything besides get fans to give up on Roode.
In the end, WWE needs to do better with Roode. He is a guy that can have interesting match after interesting match inside the squared circle. The only problem is that WWE gives him absolutely nothing to go off of and has pretty much built the poor man up to fail from the get-go!
#3 Asuka
WWE kept saying that no one was ready for Asuka, but did that statement include the writing staff that continuously seemed to not know what to do with her? While WWE did do a great job as establishing her as a big deal when she first came to the main roster, she was quickly moved to Smackdown Live to face Charlotte for The Smackdown Live Women's title.
Unfortunately for Asuka, that's where the trouble started, as she took her first main roster loss at WrestleMania 34 to Charlotte Flair. She then lost back to back tag team matches a few weeks after WrestleMania 34 and followed that up by getting pinned clean by Carmella in a Smackdown Live championship match at Money In the Bank
WWE then gave Asuka a rematch at Extreme Rules, with James Ellsworth suspended above the ring in a steel cage, but it only served to give fans a screwy finish and hand Asuka another big loss on the main roster. If nothing else, her main roster run has become embarrassing and exhausting to watch. It also doesn't show much sign of getting better.
In the end, WWE has ruined Asuka as a legitimate threat to any title match and has managed to completely destroy all the momentum that Asuka once had built up in NXT. If nothing else, this has to be one of the worst things that WWE has done in recent memory and it really hurts once you consider the potential she had.
#2 Bray Wyatt
Bray Wyatt may have never won a title in NXT, but he more than made up for that with his polarizing personality and similarity to that of Charles Manson. He was an absolutely gifted speaker that could talk in a way that was both poetic and scary at the exact same time. He also had the size and agility to be one of the company's top stars.
To be fair, WWE did start Bray Wyatt and his Wyatt family off promising enough, but it always seemed to be bogged down by something. In fact, he either lost a crucial match, lost family members or was made to look like a fool by someone more powerful than him. In all honesty, it was brutal to watch at times.
Take for example WrestleMania 30, where despite many fans thinking that Wyatt would finally be put over by John Cena, it didn't turn out that way. In fact, Wyatt took a huge loss at WrestleMania 30 to The Cenation Leader and only got his heat back after defeating Cena in a very strange cage match the next month.
Fast forward to now and Wyatt is having much of the same problem he had before. Of course, he has added problems, like his missing child payments and getting into a car accident, but Wyatt still deserved better than that. Unfortunately for Wyatt and Woken Matt Hardy, however, The Woken Warriors lost the titles to The B Team after a two-month reign.
If nothing else, that is the epitome of Bray Wyatt's time in WWE. Someone WWE tries to do something with, but then loses faith in it and buries it completely. They did it with The Wyatt Family, they did it with Wyatt's short WWE title run and they continue to do it every single time that the man even builds up an inch of momentum.
In all honesty, what WWE is doing to Wyatt is hard to watch. Of course this all probably wouldn't be happening if WWE would have had Wyatt retain The WWE Title at WrestleMania 33, but they decided to move him to Raw instead in the superstar shakeup and haven't done very much with him since!
#1 Finn Balor
Out of all the superstars that WWE dropped the ball on, Finn Balor is one of the examples that seem to sting just a little bit more. Not only is that due to the fact that the man was completely over with The WWE Universe the night he stepped foot on the main roster, but also by how quickly WWE pushed him to the top of the mountain.
WWE then rewarded Balor with the unthinkable. A match for The Universal title against Seth Rollins, which he was scheduled to win! Of course, Balor did ultimately win the match after burning the house down with Rollins, but he also injured his shoulder in the process due to a botched buckle bomb.
Balor was forced to vacate The Universal title the next night on Monday Night Raw and would be on the shelf for almost a year to heal his shoulder. Balor finally made his return to The WWE the night after WrestleMania 33, but beyond his fan reaction, it didn't seem like WWE had a lot for him to do.
In fact, WWE might have thrown him in a few number one contender matches for The Universal Title, but they never pulled the trigger on Balor being the number one contender. Unfortunately, a lot of that had to do with Brock Lesnar being the champion at the time, but WWE could have worked around that in several ways if they really wanted to.
With that being said, Balor has continued unsuccessfully to win back the title he never lost and now finds himself in the crosshairs of Baron Corbin. Now that wouldn't be such a bad thing if WWE would do more with the storyline than just short jokes, but that's all that The WWE seem capable of doing when it comes to Balor
In fact, it's gotten so bad that during a backstage segment on Raw, Baron Corbin brought Finn a playhouse to change in. Even worse, they decided to have Balor go along with the joke and actually change in the little play area instead of the locker room. Corbin also continues to make short joke after short joke, which is starting to seem more purposeful than ever.
In the end, it seems like WWE doesn't know what to do with Finn Balor. They don't want to put him in the title picture in fear of having his championship run look too unrealistic, but that's all the fans want from him. Furthermore, WWE's short jokes on Balor are getting tiring to see and make you think that they are just picking on him at this point.
Let's be honest. Balor and the other four people on this list deserve so much better than this. They are all talented in their own way and all of them showed promise in some way shape or form down in NXT.
What are your thoughts? Let us know the comments below!
