Casual Fans Don't Watch NXT

[romanstylesiii]

Sure we do, but they have to stop assuming most do. RAW is still just a TV show to most people.

I was in a bar for the last few Rumbles, and anytime an NXT guy would enter, not a single person in the bar new these guys. Same thing happened tonight on RAW.

They used to spend time developing characters with well thought out programs. What happened to that? This seems lazy, stupid, and makes me NOT want to see my fav NXT wrestlers called up.

They keep debuting these guys like their entire audience already knows who they are. 

[ayumidah]

Yeah, it's pretty unfortunate because NXT is so much better than main roster stuff usually.

[Perd]

It’s not just casual fans. I’m not a casual fan and I don’t watch NXT. And I’d bet there’s a decent chunk of their audience in the same boat.

[BigAl]

They used to make video segments so they viewers will get used to these new talents. They even made six, six different promos for Kizerny that's right that guy had more hype then all these Nxt guys

[DZ: WF Legacy]

I don't watch it either, but I check out the Takeovers and know who the main players on.

They have to keep in mind that NXT is behind a paywall, and that your average wrestling family that goes to a show probably doesn't keep tabs on things like that. They just watch the tv show that was coming to town that week that gave them something fun to look forward to. Different cities are gonna respond better (all the more reason to NOT randomly debut these guys for a quick boost). They should treat the important NXT debuts like they were coming in from another territory. Introduce them, have a plan for them, hype them up a bit. They need a purpose for being on the roster.

[Deleted]

I mean, is much of anyone here actually assuming they do?

And for that matter, if anything WWE could use this memo given how often they just act like you should already know who these people are.

[Mister Pigwell]

I can't imagine as a little kid/casual fan to be expected by WWF to know every guy they brought in during the 80s.
I didn't know DiBiase from Mid South.
I didn't know Hennig from AWA.

Another problem with WWE being stuck in the MNW/Attitude Era is they think a new guy appearing out of nowhere is always the right call and fans will know who they are. NXT doesn't have WCW's exposure and not every call up should be a surprise. They sorta tried to handle the "coming soon" stuff with the last batch a few weeks ago but sure as shit didn't bother to educate the audience why they should care.

[Mister Pigwell]

Feb 19, 2019 1:25:53 GMT -5 Lizuka #BLM said:

I mean, is much of anyone here actually assuming they do?

And for that matter, if anything WWE could use this memo given how often they just act like you should already know who these people are.

I think that's the point of the OP. That WWE seems to think so.

[romanstylesiii]

Feb 19, 2019 1:20:01 GMT -5 BigAl said:

They used to make video segments so they viewers will get used to these new talents. They even made six, six different promos for Kizerny that's right that guy had more hype then all these Nxt guys

This entertained me a lot. Put it on a t-shirt someone 

[Mozenrath]

I am honestly still not sure if these call ups are full-on callups, or if WWE is trying to address this problem and have less of a divide. It'd make sense given how they put so many NXT gals in the Rumble, and trying to have Heavy Machinery lurking around.

Like, I can understand the reasoning, though it leaves me concerned for the future in terms of even more obstacles to a lot of people getting TV time.

[Deleted]

They need to do better than “ It’s (blank) from NXT!!.”

That doesn’t mean shit to the average fan.

Thouse guys can be tearing down the house every night in NXT but once they hit the main roster it’s back to day one. What’s worse is a lot of the storylines and character development is completely lost, and people like Sami Zayn’s gimmick is “guy that really hates Kevin Owens” average fans aren’t going to go through the WWE network to explain the deep and personal relationship between these two.

That’s how I feel about DIY or The Revival. They just “good wrestlers” in a company full of good wrestlers. Everything that made them unique, told a story, or defined them happened to them in NXT. When they hit the main roster they are just another guy.

The best way I can explain it is Bobba Fett...
In the extended universe he’s a bad ass (NXT)
In the main trilogy he’s a dumb ass that gets eaten by a giant butthole. (Raw & Smackdown)

[ayumidah]

Yeah I'm leaning towards it not being full on call ups too. It's just too much, especially with DIY being champions.

[Xxcjb01xX [PIECE OF: SH-]]

The fact they expect everyone to know and care is kinda condescending in itself, and then their piss poor job of execution on how we should care about ANY of them makes it even worse

"Here they are. They're from NXT. They do shit. That's all you need to know". It's honestly quite pathetic how bad the booking is, it's like they just throw darts at a board, "Oh, I guess we'll call up this person now! And they can... *Throws another dart* Be MOODY and DARK, brilliant!"

[Tea & Crumpets]

It's not helped by the fact that very few of them have a character, or at least get called up with one.

"I wrestle good!" or "Check out my crazy themesong!" is not a character. You can have a couple of guys on the roster whose gimmick is a wrestling machine, no-frills/gimmicks-needed athlete who does their talking in the ring, whose entire shtick is they have an impressive and varied moveset. You can't do that with goddamn everybody. Ricochet has nothing to him but his finisher. Alistair Black is just Kicky McDarksoul.

Honestly we ragged on Otis being debuted as this creepy dumb hillbilly pervert but at least that's SOME semblance of character. But EC3 has literally been called up as "Guy who never talks".

Nobody has personality, nobody is given much chance to show off their personality but even when they are they don't have much of one (Ricochet's WWE.com post-debut promo is the epitome of bland goober). I'm not desperate for a New Generation reboot where Alistair Black is a satanic janitor and DIY are actual handymen feuding with Heavy Machinery's construction company, but for the love of Pete give the guys a chance to show off personality and have feuds that have something special to them. DIY had a good rivalry going in NXT but that seems to have been torpedo'd for the sake of adding them to a tag division that already has 2 callups (AOP and Heavy Machinery) doing sweet F.A.

Maybe it's just me but I feel like WWE is dangerously close to becoming Clone Wars ROH in a few years time.

[Deleted]

The Wyatt Family's the perfect example of how to do this. For a while they had vignettes before his debut and then when he debuted it turned out well. Sure, a good amount of the crowd knew him as Husky Harris but it didn't matter given it was an effective debut.

[Long A, Short A]

Feb 19, 2019 1:20:01 GMT -5 BigAl said:

They used to make video segments so they viewers will get used to these new talents. They even made six, six different promos for Kizerny that's right that guy had more hype then all these Nxt guys

Video packages mean donk, if there's no follow through and WWE has had a problem with that for some time now. I know people around here feel their feelings about Meltzer, but he has a point about how the NXT folks get cold after they've been on the main roster for a 90's minute.

Speaking of podcast: I thought this thread was going to be about the latest episode of Tights and Fights. The guest for last week is a NXT fan for real, real and he commented about how the people that went to WWE show reacted to the NXT folks. Better yet, how they didn't react.

[schma]

If it weren't for this place I wouldn't know much of anything about the NXT people. Canadians get screwed as far as the network goes and I'm not willing to jump through the hoops required to access it. Hell even with this place I didn't realize that Gargano and Ciampa are DIY until tonight. I don't even know if DIY is an acronym or what.

[Lance Uppercut]

It feels like they heard the complaints about the way they regularly introduce change people when they come to the main roster and thought “oh yeah? You think if they brought them directly to main roster tv and changed absolutely nothing about them from NXT without our wacky introductory angles, that they’d steal the show? Let see about that”.

[MAGGLE]

30people were drowning on Raw, now its 34 and NXT has nothing


Also I think I never met a casual fan so no. People around here are die hard or hate wrestling.

[RedSmile]

And then there are people like me who watch NXT/205/UK and not RAW/SD. John Pollock watches RAW/SD, so I don't have to!