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NXT as a competition
- Follow the Leader: With the success of The Nexus, WWE planned on doing something similar at the end of season 2. It didn't go well. At all.
- Old Shame: Karlee Pérez, who portrayed Maxine on the third season, described the concept as "shit" and wishes they'd been used better. She's deeply ashamed of an infamously bad match she had with the extremely green Kaitlyn on the October 19, 2010 episode, which actually won "Worst Worked Match of the Year" by The Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
- Real Song Theme Tune:
- Season 1, 2, 4 and 5 had "Wild and Young" by American Bang.
- Season 3 had "You Make the Rain Fall" by Kevin Rudolf.
- Also used was "Get Thru This" by Art of Dying, which was previously the Survivor Series 2009 theme. It was used in the first five seasons, but was rarely used during the third season.
- What Could Have Been:
- The NXT we know and love now was actually conceptualized by Paul Heyman and Shane McMahon as the original intention for WWE's ill-fated ECW revival and was from the get-go intended to be a digital-only series since it allowed for more creative freedom over its content. Unfortunately, once networks and sponsors got wind of the idea of an ECW revival, they expressed interest to Vince about carrying the series, resulting in Shane and Paul losing control of the revival and leading to the infamously toned-down series that we ended up getting. Triple H then decided to recycle the concept more or less entirely for NXT.
- Season 3 was originally slated to be an intergender show, featuring three male rookies alongside three females. The season instead became all-female. Other potential female rookies for the show included Serena Deeb (who was in the middle of a storyline where she was about to be kicked out of the Straight Edge Society) and Angela Fong (in the role of a ring announcer called Savannah). Both were released before the season could premiere.
- As seen in the Seth Rollins: Building the Architect DVD, and a video
on WWE's YouTube channel, there were plans either for an alternative Season 5 or a possible Season 6 consisting of Seth Rollins, Big E. Langston, Damien Sandow, Hunico, Bo Dallas and Leo Kruger that never came into fruition.
NXT Black & Gold
- Actor-Inspired Element: Cameron Grimes becoming rich off the January 2021 GameStop stock rise was based on his performer Trevor Caddell actually getting profits from his investments during the rise of GME and AMC stocks.
- Channel Hop: Syfy -> WWE's website -> Hulu+ -> WWE Network -> USA
- Fake Nationality:
- They don't specifically say Joaquin Wilde is meant to be Mexican, but it's the best conclusion that can be drawn from a guy in a stable that are the self-proclaimed heirs to the legacy of lucha libre, which originated in Mexico. Wilde, for the record, is Filipino-American.
- Also overlapping with Interchangeable Asian Cultures, the Korean-American Karen Q played the Chinese Mei Ying.
- Playing Against Type: Happens surprisingly often with the women when they debut on NXT:
- Paige feels she's best suited to being a heel, and played one almost all the time on the indies (save for the occasional Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal storyline with her mother). She was so popular that she appeared entirely as a Wild Card Face on NXT and has never been able to make a heel run work in WWE.
- Becky Lynch likewise worked as a heel more often than not on the indies - and an Oireland gimmick was her main schtick. Not only did one match doing that gimmick result in a huge backlash, she has never been able to play a heel too long at NXT. She's held up as one of the more natural face females of the new era, and ironically an attempt by WWE to turn her heel in 2018 directly resulted in a run where she was arguably the biggest face in the industry, regardless of gender.
- Sasha Banks was usually a face on the indies but didn't enjoy her boost in popularity until she turned heel and developed the ruthless Alpha Bitch character she's famous for.
- Billie Kay was famed for playing a Girl Next Door on the indies, with the Red Baron "Everyone's Favourite Girlfriend". On NXT she has been pushed completely as a heel with a Femme Fatale look.
- Ember Moon plays with this. She began her career wrestling entirely as a heel - an arrogant Smug Snake called Athena who dubbed herself "The Wrestling Goddess". Due to respect for her athleticism and wrestling talent, she found herself getting more bookings as a face. So it wasn't too surprising when she debuted as the Dark Magical Girl and played heroically.
- Asuka was almost always booked as a heel in her native Japan. Even before she was signed to WWE, American promotions preferred her as a face. NXT merges the two - where she's a clear example of Good Is Not Nice.
- Real Song Theme Tune:
- Reality Subtext: Cameron Grimes' Nouveau Riche gimmick is based on him actually having successfully invested a bit of money in the 2021 stock boom that saw Gamestop and a couple of other stocks make drastic gains on the market.
- Role-Ending Misdemeanor: According to rumor, the reason Leva Bates disappeared from shows was because she got drunk and mouthed off to WWE management. Leva herself has denied this, and appeared on NXT a few weeks after the "news" with a new theme. Either way, she hasn't appeared since mid 2015.
- Romance on the Set:
- Carmella and Colin Cassady dated in real life, but have since broken up. Ditto for Enzo Amore and Liv Morgan.
- Montez Ford (from the Street Profits) is engaged and later married to Bianca Belair, a relationship that was acknowledged on programming after both made it to the main roster.
- Their time on NXT programming didn't overlap (in fact, the former never wrestled in an aired NXT match) but Braun Strowman and Raquel Gonzalez were confirmed to be dating in 2020.
- Vic Joseph and McKenzie Mitchell started dating in this era and married in the 2.0 era.
- Shrug of God: Upon being faced with the question of why there's a high level of disparity between NXT and the Takeovers compared with Raw, Smackdown and the PPVs, Triple H had this to say:"Everybody has opinions. I'm sure you've heard that quote before. Yeah, everybody has opinions. Look, you just try to put out the best product you can put out. For me, it's a different reach and a different vibe. If you're a fan of a certain genre of music, you just like that music better. If you go to that concert, you like that concert better. It's a big world, lots of fans. WWE has almost a billion followers on social media, number one channel for sports, number two channel overall on YouTube. We got a lot of people watching. Some of them like different things. It's just funny people believe what they believe is the answer. It certainly doesn't seem to be hurting business, there's enough product to go around for everybody."
- What Could Have Been:
- The day before she was fired, Seth Rollins's girlfriend Zahra Schreiber debuted at a live show as Solomon Crowe's manager.
- Alexa Bliss cycled through a few different possible gimmicks. The first of which was a Southern Belle, where she would debut as Scott Dawson's girlfriend (a la Nidia and Jamie Noble). She even worked some live events doing the gimmick. She later worked events teaming with Charlotte and Sasha Banks, many speculating that she would debut as a new member of the Beautiful Fierce Females. She ultimately debuted with her Everything's Better with Sparkles gimmick.
- Becky Lynch was signed around the same time as fellow Irish wrestler Rachelle St Claire. But Rachelle suffered two serious ligament injuries and had to turn down her contract. She was also the girlfriend of other Irish signee Joe Cabray - who worked a few live events as Luther Ward before opting to leave WWE. This worked out quite well for him, as he set up the promotion Over the Top Wrestling in Ireland - leading to a boom period for Irish wrestling.
- As per Breaking Ground Aliyah originally wanted to have a belly dancer gimmick. Despite her disastrous rehearsal in front of the roster, she still appeared twice on TV in the Bedlah Babe outfit. Then all of a sudden the music and outfit were changed.
- Nia Jax's original ring name was 'Zada', which is Arabic for 'huntress'. She even changed her Twitter handle to it. A few months later it was changed.
- At a live event, after losing to SAnitY, Wesley Blake & Steve Cutler beat them down with the help of Chad Lail (formerly TNA's Gunner) and Lacey Evans, all wearing biker attire (including Evans, instead of her usual "classy lady" outfit). It seemed the four were set up to form a new stable, but, while Lail, (later renamed Jaxson Ryker) was made part of the group, Lacey lasted only a few appearances before going back to her old gimmick. The trio of Ryker-Cutler-Blake eventually made it up to TV as a Power Trio called "The Forgotten Sons", largely with the same gimmick, while Evans was called up to the main roster with her "classy lady" gimmick.
- Internally, NXT Kids was a teased Spin-Off concept that made the rounds internally in 2015 — a show featuring NXT matches, but with presentation more catered towards younger audiences, featuring fun trivia segments, kid-friendlier humor, and even the odd child co-commentator. Only one show was ever filmed, with the resulting pilot leaking online by accident in October 2015 — it otherwise appears to have since been completely scrapped.note
- Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: One of the best-received WWE angles of 2019 came after the ill-fated Crown Jewel event in Saudi Arabia where a large part of the male roster (and also Natalya and Lacey Evans) were left stranded after the event because of "mechanical difficulties" (widely believed to be intentional sabotage bordering on hostage-taking by the Saudi royal family following a dispute with Vince over money). With their available roster gutted and an episode of SmackDown to book, WWE were forced to improvise hurriedly, resulting in NXT invading the main roster and decimating the remaining SmackDown (and later RAW) stars, led by Triple H and Shawn Michaels and resulting in an epic 3-way confrontation between the three brands at Survivor Series where NXT actually came out on top.
- You Look Familiar:
- Solomon Crowe is Sami Callihan, who was at the time best known for his work in CZW but is nowadays most known for Impact Wrestling.
- Before becoming Tye Dillinger, Ronnie Arnell had already made several appearances on WWE programming:
- His first appearance was actually back in 2005 and he trained with quite a few guys that would become fairly big names on the main roster later:
- He, as Shawn/Gavin Spears, was a former singles and tag champion in OVW (read: two incarnations of developmental ago). He tagged with Cody Runnels and then feuded with Runnels, along with Boris Alexiev and Aaron Stevens, who WWE fans know as Cody Rhodes, Santino Marella (back before he became a Joke Character) and Damien Sandow (at the time best known as "Idol" Stevens of the short lived Teacher's Pets tag team). He returned to this moniker after exiting WWE and joining All Elite Wrestling.
- He was in FCW as a Florida Tag Team Champion with Nick Nemeth - then best known as Nicky from the Spirit Squad, but nowadays better known as Dolph Ziggler.
- He was Stan. Yep, that Stan - the guy that got his face superkicked by Shawn Michaels backstage that one time just so HBK could prove he could do it.
- Damian Priest used to be called Punishment Martínez of Ring of Honor fame.
- Isaiah "Swerve" Scott was Shane Strickland from Combat Zone Wrestling and Major League Wrestling.
- Nick Miller and Shane Thorne, AKA The Mighty or TM-61, were previously known as Mikey Nicholls and Shane Haste, or The Mighty Don’t Kneel or TMDK of Pro Wrestling NOAH fame. The team’s third member, Jonah Rock, would later join NXT as Bronson Reed.
- Dexter Lumis and Cameron Grimes used to wrestle under their own names, Sam Shaw and Trevor Lee. Shaw was mainly known for his time on TNA playing a similar serial killer gimmick. Lee has competed in various independent promotions but he was also mainly known for working on Impact.
- If you watched early 2010's TNA, you may recognize Joaquin Wilde as former TNA's X-Division competitor and one-time champion Zema Ion, later known as DJZ.
- Manager Robert Stone is best known for his time in TNA as the Jersey Shore-inspired Robbie E.
- Drake Maverick is British independent star Rockstar Spud, who was best known for his time in TNA.
- Killian Dain, of S Anit Y fame, was known as Big Damo on the British circuit.
- Tegan Nox used to compete in the indies under the name Nixon Newell.
- Franky Monet is Taya Valkyrie of Impact Wrestling fame.
- Deonna Purazzo was mainly used as a jobber on NXT before her massive success in Impact Wrestling.
- Seemingly subverted with Sha Samuels, who initially had a jobber-style debut on NXT UK as 'Ed Harvey', then suddenly halfway through the match bellowed that his name was actually 'Sha Samuels' and beat the tar out of his opponent.
- LA Knight was better known as Eli Drake of Impact Wrestling and NWA fame. He was also featured in the NXT developmental under the name Slate Randall, but never made it to TV before being released in 2014.
NXT 2.0/White & Gold
- Actor-Shared Background: While some people might find the idea of SCRYPTS suddenly becoming a gangbanger to be odd, he actually was in a gang when he was younger; he got out of it when was one of his friends was killed, and it led him into going into acrobatics. note
- Playing Against Type: Joe Gacy was a frequent CZW competitor and had a tendency towards violence and brutality in his matches on the indy circuit. In NXT, he plays a non-violent parody of "social justice warriors".
- Real Song Theme Tune: Since September 14, 2021, Wale performs the opening theme, "Down South".
- Romance on the Set:
- Bron Breakker and Cora Jade were in a relationship. Jade was also in a relationship with Trey Baxter before he got released.
- Blair Davenport and Riley Osborne started dating after meeting each other in the Performance Center and eventually got engaged.
- Nathan Frazer and Thea Hail are also a couple.
- Trick Williams and Lash Legend are currently dating.
- What Could Have Been: Bron Breakker originally went by the ring name Rex Steiner, paying homage to his father and uncle, even going as far as using the name on his social media, before being changed days before his debut.
