Ranking Every Former NXT Champion Since Their Main Roster Debut (Part 1)

Oh, it’s time for us all to get sad again…

Ranking NXT Champions is something that has been done to death across the internet, and I really don’t think there’s a great deal I could add to that discussion until NXT’s lineage get significantly longer than it currently is, however, as much as almost every singles champion in NXT has a brilliant reign as champion, this doesn’t always translate to main roster success. Be it through bad writing, injuries, or management just never getting behind them, some former NXT champions completely flopped on the grander stages.

These rankings are going to include every former NXT Men’s and NXT Women’s Champions that have debuted on the main roster as of May 2019, with the sole exception being Kari Sane, since she’s only been on the main roster for a month, so it’s far too early to make any judgements. I’m also not counting Ciampa & Gargano’s “debuts” in February this year because Ciampa’s injury put an end to that a couple of weeks in. Also, this is going to be a three-parter because it ended up being way longer than I had anticipated.

18 – Bo Dallas

Days as NXT Champion: 260
Called Up On: Raw 7/4/14
Best Match Since Callup: w/ Curtis Axel vs The Revival at Summerslam 2018
Championships Since Callup: 1x Tag Team Championship

I can’t say this one surprises me…

Don’t get me wrong, I thought Bo Dallas was a great character as NXT Champion, but as good as it was, it was the kind of character that could only ever really work on a small scale. Sure, in a crowd of under 1000 people, most of whom are pretty hardcore wrestling fans, they’ll play along with the weird shit you’re trying to get over because it’s fun, but in front of over 10,000 people, most of whom have never heard of you, it’s going to happen.

Bo started off well enough with a winning streak that lasted for a little while, however, it was almost exclusively against people at the bottom of the totem pole and before having his winning streak ended by R-Truth of all people. There still seemed like there was some hope for Bo when he got a series of flukey wins over Mark Henry, but one squash match and an injury later, it became clear Bo was never going to get very high on the main roster.

After floundering for a few years, he saw a small measure of success as one of The Miz’s henchman alongside Curtis Axel when Miz moved to Raw in the 2017 brand split with a stranglehold over the Intercontinental Championship. This would never lead to singles success as their unceremonious breakup happened when Miz was drafted back to Smackdown in 2018 without Bo & Curtis, however, they would launch themselves to some success following this, shockingly claiming the Raw Tag Team Championships from Matt Hardy & Bo’s older brother Bray Wyatt at Extreme Rules 2018.

While this was great for the pair, now known as “The B-Team”, it wouldn’t create any longterm success, as once they lost their titles to the Authors of Pain, they would be gone from TV for most of the year. The most recent appearance on the B-Team was on Smackdown a few weeks ago, losing to Roman Reigns, despite having a 2-on-1 advantage and a special guest enforcer biased in their favour, so that should tell you all you need to know about how Bo’s done on main roster.

17 – Bobby Roode

Days as NXT Champion: 202
Called Up On: Smackdown 8/22/17
Best Match Since Callup: vs Ricochet on Raw 4/22/19
Championships Since Callup: 1x United States Championship, 1x Tag Team Championship

It seemed so easy…

When it comes to NXT Champions, there were few who did better character work than Bobby Roode. From the moment he entered the brand of black and yellow, he set out his mission statement and everything he did during his time as champion was in service of that mission. He was the best heel that NXT would ever have until Tommaso Ciampa came about, so please explain to me why, upon his main roster debut, he was a smiling, “just happy to be there” babyface?

It boggles the mind that this was the approach they took when Bobby Roode debuted on the main roster. I get that people were always going to cheer him on his debut, and having him pop the crowds and stuff for his debut match is fine, but afterwards, you need to turn him back into the character that allows him to soar. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen and it left Roode as a character with seemingly no direction, that no-one really wanted to get behind.

It didn’t help that his debut feud was with a heel Dolph Ziggler, who is one of the most boring characters of the modern era, and only ever beat him via roll-up. Roode would eventually win the United States Championship by defeating Jinder Mahal for the vacant belt after Ziggler vacated it for precisely no reason whatsoever. Any potential this win had for Roode was quickly dashed as Roode would have a couple of ok defences of the title before dropping it to Randy Orton in unceremonious fashion.

This would get him a match on the Wrestlemania main card for the title, but he was significantly overshadowed by the white-hot popularity of Rusev, and would eventually lose the match to Jinder Mahal. This lead to a good few months of Roode doing next to nothing on TV, before teaming up with Chad Gable for no apparent reason. This team would stop and start a lot during their time, and while they did win the Raw Tag Team Championships, this was during a time of very low prestige for the titles, where pretty much every team on Raw would win them at some point.

Now he’s split from Gable again, shaved his moustache and demanding we all call him “Robert Roode” who sounds like an uncle of a friend you don’t know all that well, things could potentially be looking up for him, but based on what he’s been doing so far on main roster, I’m not getting my hopes up.

16 – Ember Moon

Days as NXT Women’s Champion: 139
Called Up On: Raw 4/9/18
Best Match Since Callup: Women’s Money in the Bank 2018
Championships Since Callup: None

Ember Moon is one of a few strange cases that we have to tackle at this point in the list because she hasn’t really been on main roster long enough to do anything of note at this point. Admittedly there are plenty of entries later on this list that contradict that statement, but when it comes to the women’s division unless your name is Charlotte Flair, it can take a while for someone to rise to prominence.

Ember also wasn’t helped by an unfortunate injury that befell her at the end of January, taking her out of action for a number of months. All of this means it’s pretty hard to rank her any higher than this. It’s not like she’s been ruined and made to look like a fool, but that’s mostly because she hasn’t really done anything yet. I’m sure (and I hope) that will change in the years to come, but as of right now, there’s nothing really to shout about.

15 – Aleister Black

Days as NXT Champion: 108
Called Up On: Raw 2/18/19
Best Match Since Callup: w/ Ricochet vs The Usos vs The Bar vs Shinsuke Nakamura & Rusev at Wrestlemania 35
Championships Since Callup: None

Much like Ember Moon, Aleister Black suffers from the problem of not having been around on main roster long enough to have made that big of a splash. However, I would argue that he’s managed to make a much bigger impact since moving to main roster than Ember Moon has, in less than half the time, thanks to being paired with Ricochet.

Black & Ricochet being paired up almost immediately upon their debuts turned out to be a blessing in disguise, it stopped these two from getting lost in the shuffle over the course of the past few months and kept a constant spotlight on them. While Black & Ricochet wouldn’t claim any titles as a pair they went on a tear, defeating almost every tag team on both Raw and Smackdown as the weeks progressed.

Not only this, but they had some excellent, and pretty high profile matches, such as the Triple Threat Tag match at Fastlane, where their talents were front and center for the whole match, and one of the better matches on the Wrestlemania 35 card in the 4 Way for the Smackdown Tag Titles; where once again, the pairing were allowed to shine the whole way through.

Now the pair have been split up, we’re yet to see what level of success Aleister Black has as a singles star on Smackdown since he’s only been cutting promos from a dark and smokey room so far. This could go nowhere, but it shows that the writing team are at least trying to invest in the character enough to keep him relevant for the time being, which is generally a good sign.

14 – Andrade “Cien” Almas

Days as NXT Championship: 139
Called Up On: Smackdown 4/17/18
Best Match Since Callup: vs Daniel Bryan 9/4/18
Championships Since Callup: None

The man now known simply as “Andrade”, Almas is a pretty weird case when comparing him to others on the list. He hasn’t had a great deal of success in terms of wins and losses, and he has spent a lot of time absent from TV, however, he always seems to be in the general consciousness of Smackdown ever since he first showed up.

Although he would almost always come out on the losing end, Andrade has had many brilliant matches against brilliant opponents, and slowly but surely building up his star power. Matches against men like AJ Styles, Daniel Bryan and Rey Mysterio have been slowly cementing Andrade as a mainstay of the Smackdown live roster, and a couple of high profile wins against Rey Mysterio and Intercontinental Champion Finn Balor as of late have positioned him for some potentially great things to come.

He arguably hasn’t made as big as a splash as Black in his time on the main roster, but he seems to be in a much more overall solid position in the current hierarchy of WWE, which is arguably better in the long term. That said, he hasn’t done all that much yet, so I can’t really put him any higher than I have.

13 – Adrian Neville

Days as NXT Champion: 286
Called Up On: Raw 3/30/15
Best Match Since Callup: vs Seth Rollins on Raw 8/3/15
Championships Since Callup: 2x Cruiserweight Championship

Neville is one that I found quite tricky to place when everything is taken into account.

Neville was brought up to the main roster with a lot of hype behind him. He was short but shredded beyond belief and he was able to move with a speed and fluidity that we’d never seen in WWE before and it was absolutely mind-blowing. When he debuted in 2015, WWE seemed to flip flop between treating like total trash and their next top star. On the one hand, he was slumming by losing to King Barrett of all people, but then suddenly the next week he would go and have an amazing match with WWE Champion Seth Rollins and was able to pin him for the three, only for it not to count due to a technicality.

In addition to this, for the longest time, he had one of the most protected finishers in the company in the Red Arrow, not even John Cena kicked out of it, with big match John being dead to rights after a Red Arrow, only for Rusev to break up the pin. This kind of back and forth would happen a whole bunch over through 2015 and 2016 until eventually, Neville would go down with an injury that took him out of action in late 2016, which would take him out of action until early the next year.

When Neville came back, he had a renewed fire seemingly lit under him. Now a heel, Neville had traded in his young fresh-faced look for a grizzled beard and a snarling expression that sent shivers through my spine, spitting vile at everyone in the Cruiserweight Division. Neville would do everything he could to bring the quickly floundering Cruiserweight Division to prominence in WWE, and he had a pretty entertaining run as Cruiserweight Championship, during which Austin Aries threw a strop and walked out of the company, which was nice.

Unfortunately, we now have to address the elephant in the room.

Neville would eventually lose his Cruiserweight Championship, to the world-renowned piece of human shit Enzo Amore, and upon finding out he would be taking another loss to the man one night on Raw, he walked out of WWE, never to return. Given that Sasha Banks is still undecided on her future in WWE, as of the time of writing, Neville is the only person on this list to no longer be with WWE, which does drag him down a bit in terms of these rankings.

Sure he’s crushing it on the independent scene and is probably about to tear the house down against Hangman Page at AEW’s Double or Nothing later this month, but in terms of his run on main roster WWE, it’s a major thumbs down.

12 – Samoa Joe

Days as NXT Champion: 134
Called Up On: 1/30/17
Best Match Since Callup: vs AJ Styles at Summerslam 2018
Championships Since Callup: 2x United States Championship

I had trouble placing Samoa Joe on this list, because when you think about his 2 and a half years on the main roster generally it seems like he should be higher up, but when you look into the details, there isn’t really that much great stuff to be had.

His debut was a good start, with him coming to Triple H’s aid when then the King of Kings was feuding with Seth Rollins in the build-up to Wrestlemania 33. Unfortunately, Joe’s shocking sneak attack wouldn’t come without its problems, as a wonky takedown of the soon-to-be Kingslayer would reinjure Rollins’ problematic knee and throw his Wrestlemania clash with Triple H up in the air. Luckily Rollins would recover in time for that match, and injuring Rollins opened up some great story opportunities for Joe going forward as an absolute monster.

Joe would continue with this momentum the next week by defeating Roman Reigns thanks to an assist from Braun Strowman, and would subsequently destroy Sami Zayn at the Fastlane PPV. Unfortunately, the next few months weren’t great for Joe, with him being left completely off of the Wrestlemania 33 card, and then having a pretty underwhelming match with Seth Rollins at Payback the next month, where he would come out on the losing end.

The next year or so was full of ups and down for the Samoan Submission Machine. For every awesome match with Brock Lesnar, there was a boring match with Roman Reigns, and for every dominant performance at Summerslam, there was a 5-second loss to Drew Mcintyre at Survivor Series. Then came the summer of 2018, and Joe’s WWE Championship feud with AJ Styles.

The feud started off great. Joe is one of the best promo guys in the company right now and whenever he was given mic time he would make the most of it; turning to AJ’s daughter and claiming that “I’ll be your new daddy” is something none of us will forget in a hurry. Unfortunately, the pair would only have one match that was anything worth shouting about before shoddy finishes and way too many matches would leave us all wishing the feud would just end.

Luckily Joe looks to be on the up and up again now, with a United States Championship win and a dominant defence of said title at Wrestlemania 35, but it wouldn’t surprise me if yet another down is just beyond the horizon.

11 – Shinsuke Nakamura

Days as NXT Champion: 147
Called Up On: Smackdown 4/4/17
Best Match Since Callup: vs AJ Styles at Wrestlemania 34
Championships Since Callup: 1x United States Championship

That’ll teach us to get our hopes up.

Nakamura sits alongside Roode as one of the biggest examples of an NXT Alumni to be “ruined” by main roster writing and booking, and while it’s true that Nakamura’s time on the main roster hasn’t exactly been what we’d hoped for, it’s certainly not without its merits.

How Nakamura was handled during his first couple of months can be argued as both a good and a bad thing. On the one hand, they treated his debut match as a huge deal, and saving it for a PPV was a great way to build up some mystique around him. Unfortunately, that match was against a heel Dolph Ziggler and I’m already falling asleep with boredom. His second match was then against Baron Corbin, and now I think I might’ve slipped into a coma.

Then he was launched pretty quickly into a big Summerslam feud for the WWE Championship. Great right? Well, technically yes it is a good thing, but it was against none other than Jinder Mahal, who made racist comments about eastern Asian people…yikes. It would get worse, since not only would Nakamura lose to Jinder, twice, but they would be matches so very boring I can’t remember a single detail about them thinking back to it right now, but I imagine the Singh Brothers got involved on multiple occasions.

Still, there was hope on the horizon, as Shinsuke Nakamura would win the 2018 Royal Rumble, in what ended up being one of the best Royal Rumble matches in the history of the gimmick and an epic clash with AJ Styles was on the horizon for Wrestlemania 34. There’s no way they could mess this up right?

…right?

As to whether or not they messed the Mania match itself up is really a matter of perspective. It was a brilliant match, however, it wasn’t anywhere near as good as the pair’s encounter at New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Wrestle Kingdom 13 event from the previous year, so many fans came away disappointed. In addition to this, Nakamura didn’t win, which seemed like an odd decision, however, he did turn heel which seemed like a great move and a genius way to keep Nakamura’s momentum going in defeat.

Unfortunately (I’m saying that a lot in this list…), the feud would continue with most of the matches being pretty disappointing. We got a match at the Greatest Royal Rumble event that would end in a disqualification, a match at Backlash that would end in a double KO thanks to simultaneous dick kicks and finally a pretty good Last Man Standing match at Money in the Bank. Nakamura would once again come out on the losing end at Money in the Bank and he quickly sank back down the card, obliterating Jeff Hardy to take his United States Championship before completely disappearing off of TV for seemingly no reason.

Through no fault of his own, the United States Championship would fall to the least prestigious point it’s been in for year while over Nakamura’s shoulder, thanks to a severe lack of title defenses and almost no appearances on PPV, save for an excellent match against Intercontinental Champion Seth Rollins at Survivor Series; although that wasn’t a title defence and Nakamura didn’t win, so make of that what you will. Most recently Nakamura has teamed up with Rusev and the pair were the afterthought in the 4 way for the Smackdown Tag Team titles at Wrestlemania 35.

Honestly, you could argue Nakamura should be lower down on this list, and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree, but personally, I think his highest moments were some of the best in recent memory, and while it doesn’t erase all of the bad, it certainly pulls him up more than you’d think.

So that’s part 1! Let me know what you think of the list so far in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo and make sure to come back on Saturday for part 2.