Red, Blue, Yellow and Black?
So Survivor Series is officially the “Which brand is the best” show, and has been since the Brand Split.
Am I the only person who wants to see NXT invade Raw AND Smackdown during the annual brand invasion, and set up NXT in a triple threat Survivor Series Elimination Match (4 vs. 4 vs. 4)? Heck, even put the champs in with the RAW/SD Champion vs. Champion matches.
Allow me to quote known wrestling aficionado Marty McFly here:
NO! NO PLEASE GOD NO!
This would be a disaster for multiple reasons.
1. Look at what happened to Smackdown last night at Survivor Series, with a men’s team full of former World Champions. Raw swept them and the one match that Smackdown did win was said to not count because apparently WWE can’t even book one side winning all of the matches properly. Now you want to bring in the minor leaguers and expect WWE to treat them with any kind of dignity?
2. I’m going to go on a limb and say Vince doesn’t watch a lot of NXT. I can picture him watching the NXT people invade and think that either A, they’re way too small, or B, wondering if they weigh 205lbs.
3. NXT exists in its own world. If you try to move them into another world, it’s not going to fit as well. It didn’t work when WCW wrestlers came to WWE and it’s not going to work here either. The announcers won’t know the stories well enough and a lot of what works so well, mainly the smaller, more intimate atmosphere of Full Sail and the long form storytelling, would be completely lost.
4. The commentary would butcher these people. Mauro, Nigel and even Percy treat the wrestling in front of them as the most important thing in the world. That’s how it should be, but the WWE announcers would be all about the Raw vs. Smackdown stuff with Graves doing his usual stuff (which can work in the right circumstances) and overshadowing the matches.
5. Enough with the Brand Supremacy. NXT wrestlers have some rather personal issues and asking them to work together would throw those out the window. Can you imagine Black, Ciampa and Gargano having to be on the same team right now?
That’s also assuming they’re not crushed like grapes and treated like imbeciles who don’t deserve to share the ring with Shane McMahon. Keep the NXT people FAR away from the main roster where they can be safe.
An invasion could be fun and could work just fine if it’d be handled and booked properly. The problem is that it wouldn’t be handled and booked properly. Vince and Triple H have two very different visions and if Vince was more of a “wrestling” guy instead of a “sports entertainer” guy who puts more stock in a wrestler’s appearance than just about anything else.
The philosophies are just way too different and, frankly, I wouldn’t trust Vince at all to treat this with the seriousness and devotion that it would take to make it work. Everything and anything on the main roster is micromanaged by Vince and he makes the final decision on whatever goes down. In the end, it’d be about as interesting as 205 Live was when Vince was running it, and that’s probably how it’d look.
Also, the whole thing with brand supremacy is bunk. it’s lazy drivel that Vince hauls out during Survivor Series each year and fans don’t buy into it anyway because they know there’s no actual rivalry between the brands. NXT relies on stuff like personal conflicts, continuity and cohesive booking to sell its product whereas the main roster just goes in whatever direction Vince’s mood takes him in at any given moment.
The only way it would work, would be if it was similar to the Nexus angle, where a small faction came up at once and just laid out Lesnar and Bryan at the end. For a few weeks, they just appear on both brands and wreck people. And that’s only because it would be a call up. I wouldn’t let them stay on NXT and risk the damage. This could be a solid way for TUE to debut next year, actually.