Would NXT To Fox Be Good Or Bad For The Junior Brand?

In recent weeks and months, there has been more than a little bit of chatter about the WWE/Fox partnership expanding beyond SmackDown Live. We’ve heard that Renee Young could shift to a studio show, for example. And the latest talk seems to indicate that NXT could either gain, or switch to, a two hour weekly show on the Fox cable offering, FS1. The latest on this would indicate that it could be a live show, geared toward going head to head with a certain other Elite competitor, and the move to a live show might mean Vince McMahon drives things. So, would NXT to Fox be good or bad for the junior brand? Let’s discuss…

It could be good because…

More exposure is a good thing, right? It’s worth asking (and I do not have an answer), what the amount of viewers could be via the WWE Network versus FS1. Now, the rub there is, the Network is 9.99 a month, and not every cable provider offers FS1. To be completely honest, I have no idea if mine at home does or not.

Regardless, getting a show on a new platform is likely to increase audience size. Also, if we are offering two hours of NXT (live even) every week, well that’s a big change from the current plan. We have an hour a week, taped, at present. NXT TakeOvers are the only live offering we have from the black and yellow brand at present, and they are consistently excellent. If those are a good baseline, then a 2 hour weekly show could be exciting.

It could be bad because…

So many reasons.

One, should Vince really be taking control of that platform, that’s a shame. One, Vince is going to be really busy. He already micromanages RAW and SmackDown and PPVs. Soon enough, XFL 2.0 will be in full swing, so he can micromanage that too. He does not need something else to deal with.

Then there’s this: NXT is Hunter’s thing. He’s been nurturing it. He’s been growing it. From all we’ve heard, it leads me to believe Vince has had little to no involvement in NXT’s wild success. Put it another way…please, don’t let Vince muck this up.

If it’s going to go live every week…let Hunter stay at the helm. Maybe give him help because live is different than taped, but let Hunter run things.

It could be good because…

More time means more opportunity. There are plenty of Superstars, across all of WWE’ s brands, who don’t get seen on TV enough as it is. Going with two hours of live NXT each week means more matches.

Now, this could mean we see some guys move down to work more (like Tyler Breeze). It could also mean NXT can feature more talent more regularly. There are plenty of hot names in NXT who did not work the most recent TakeOver, for example-Killian Dain and Matt Riddle only showed up in a brawling segment. We got no Keith Lee. There are plenty of others.

It could be bad because…

We don’t need another Vince-influenced show. NXT works because it’s generally light on the lame segments. We don’t get time-wasting segments at all, or rarely. If we go two hours, live, with Vince, do you want to bet we start seeing more stupid segments?

We don’t need-or want-RAW lite.

We don’t want or need to see the NXT TakeOver feel spoiled by adding weekly live shows. There is something about NXT as it currently exists. Maybe it reminds me of ECW-taped weekly shows, PPVs every few months, no BS-but the way it’s done now, it works well. If it ain’t broke…

TLDR

The idea of getting more NXT is both exciting and scary. Exciting because more of a good thing should be a good thing. Scary because, well, it’s a great product, and I don’t want to see it diluted, nor do I want to see the wrong hands get involved and muck it up.

NXT on FS1 is intriguing, because I think that is the brand that is best served to compete with AEW in terms of no frills wrestling…I just question if it stays no frills assuming Vince gets involved.