I am not talking about Aleister Black and Ricochet getting prime spots on RAW and Smackdown, culminating in a RAW tag titles match at Fastlane, while still competing on the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic on NXT. WWE for now seems to be hitting their stride with some of the top tier stars from WWE’s “developmental” brand.
This model of keeping them as NXT talent while competing on the main roster seems to be working thus far, although the recent news about Tommaso Ciampa requiring surgery which would sideline him for up to a year is a setback, that overall strategy is working.
However, with all the attention given to Ricochet and Black, it seems WWE may have almost forgotten about the last crop of NXT callups to the main roster: Lars Sullivan, EC3, Nikki Cross, Lacey Evans, Otis Dozovic and Tucker Knight (Heavy Machinery).
Remember this image and the subsequent vignettes about each individual (and tag team)? In terms of production quality, they were great, highlighting each superstar’s unique attributes. Unfortunately like with many things, reality does not match promotional expectation.
Taking out Lars Sullivan’s personal issues aside, the rest of them have not been utilized properly. At least with past NXT callups such as Samoa Joe, Finn Balor, Shinsuke Nakamura and Drew McIntyre they’re doing something with them or had done something. McIntyre is probably the best example amongst those four with his recent run, but that may be attributed to him having a past run in WWE and the higher ups having a higher opinion of the Scotsman.
What have Evans, EC3, Heavy Machinery and Nikki Cross done since being called up? First, they haven’t even been assigned to a brand, so the lack of consistent presence somewhere does not help in character development. Other than Heavy Machinery who went through three tag teams during a gauntlet match on RAW, there has literally been nothing done with the rest.
EC3 had a brief program with Dean Ambrose before relegated to backstage segments (posing in front of a mirror because, you know, the muscles) before not even appearing at all on either of the main shows other than as a stand in during the Ric Flair’s 70th birthday segment. Nikki Cross had a good six woman tag match on RAW before not really doing anything else either.
But what is happening with Lacey Evans is probably the worst of all.
Evans, a former US Marine with a vicious right hook finisher she calls the “Woman’s Right” was booked on NXT as a heel who called out “societal trash” and the “nasty” woman, but in the main roster all she’s done is strut down the ramp before going back up the entrance again. There’s no explanation nor does she say anything; it’s worse than the whole attempted repackaging of Emma to Emmalina before WWE decided to scrap that whole idea and just have her go back to being Emma live on TV.
With recent releases of Tye Dillinger, TJP and Hideo Itami (though those two were on 205 Live), hopefully there should be some room for creative to find some space for these wandering NXT alumni. When you have women’s tag team titles along with that, it’s hard for WWE to come up with a reason to leave talented people like that on the proverbial shelf.
An average professional doing the 9-5 grind who really loves wrestling across all platforms. Here's hoping wrestlers finally get some basic workers rights in 2021.
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