by As rumors run rampant of Adam Cole dropping the belt to Velveteen Dream at tonight’s NXT In Your House, we couldn’t help but reflect on every Heavyweight World Champion in NXT history.
Few people if any will disagree that NXT is the top product along with AEW in wrestling today. The world championship has usually been (in most cases) the last step before a run in the WWE.
We thought it would be a lot of fun to look back at the past World Champions and see who the WWE made the most of it with, and who saw their best days in NXT and failed to reach stardom on the main roster.
We truly hope tonight’s main event is decided on the best storyline and athletics possible and doesn’t allow any political or world climate reasons to get involved. Let the best man scripted to win, win.
Now, PLEASE UNDERSTAND, these grades I’m about to hand out are strictly based on the WWE main Roster run, and NOT BASED ON their clear success in NXT. It will go in chronological order. Also key to note that Adam Cole, Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa will not appear on this list because they remain with NXT currently.
Authors note, in a time when equality is preached, (as well it should be), how unique is it that out of the 16 NXT World Champions, an incredible 9 of the 16 were not born on American soil. Think about it, Neville, Zayn, Owens, Balor, Nakamura, Roode, McIntyre, Andrade and Black are all international talent. The WWE may screw a lot of things up as of late, but they continue to be the leader in international talent making it big!
