Bronson Reed, Bobby Fish part of 13 WWE NXT releases

[Thelone]

I think Bliss might have had a shot if not for Asuka. Asuka is what derails a lot of people because she was the top dog for so long... but I don't have a problem with that because the story suited it. The problem was her getting called up without having the chance to put someone over first and make the next top star.

She probably could, it's not like they had any faith in Moon or anybody else during that period.

I don't remember Corbin or Elias squashing jobbers much, and if Elias did, it's because he wasn't much above jobber level himself when he was called up. But Elias is absolutely an example of a guy who NXT made, as they helped him find the gimmick that made him more than bland Logan Shulo.
Also, who is to say that he would have wound up squashing jobbers all the time like the Ascension instead of being involved in real storylines like Lars Sullivan was?

Most of Corbin's NXT run was squashing jobbers over and over, and it got old really fast. Elias... was just there really, but I do remember the NXT crowd not giving a single shit about his act. I'm actually surprised he stayed there until early 2017.

I'm not really sure who you think fits into this category other than maybe Crews, Jax, and Dana Brooke, and I think it's pretty much universally recognized that the latter two were called up before they were ready. Furthermore, I think there were a lot of people who were less bland in NXT and Vince made them blander when they were called up (Ember Moon, Ascension, Summer Rae, American Alpha, Heavy Machinery. We're even seeing it now with Karrion Kross. They took away his entrance and his symbolism and have reduced him to a catchphrase).

Crews, Moon, Ricochet, most of the 205 Live crew (well, when that was still a thing), Carrillo, Dijak, Yim, Balor, Lee, Andrade and a ton more who aren't there anymore/I'm not thinking of.

Why are you assuming that they haven't been working with him and for whatever reason it's just not taking? You hire a guy like that because you don't know if your promo classes will work for him until you try. Yes, O'Reilly's downfall as a singles competitor in NXT has been the same thing that hurt him in ROH, but fr Seth Rollins, his strength on the main roster has been the thing he was the worst at in ROH. Pac was bland as f*ck, too, but look where he is now. Not all of that should be credited to NXT, but that's certainly where he really started to show improvement in that category.

I don't think anybody was expecting O'Reilly to become the second coming of The Rock, but he's been in NXT for four years with ample TV time and still can't cut a decent promo. At some point, you have to cut your losses and let him go. Even if they wanna send him to the MR as a tag team guy, you have to find the Michaels to his Janetty (which neither Fish or Roddy were) or he'll be DOA and released six months later anyway. NXT became so stale because they have a lot of guys who are stuck there for various reasons (not MR material, don't wanna be called up, too old, etc). NXT needs a rolling roster, not a stagnant one. All promotions do to be honest, but a developmental one more than anything.

NXT actually hasn't had to sell out arenas very much, as their schedule has always been quite limited, and they really haven't had to do it since the downturn started.

I guess they only had to fill up the Takeover arenas and Full Sail every X weeks.

Your point about size and tenure is taken (although, again, who did OVW produce towards the end? And NXT is at about the point in terms of tenure as developmental where OVW was when WWE dropped them), but when you add the women back in, NXT's record looks a lot better. I'm not holding not developing bigger-name female stars against the others because that wasn't their directive at the time, but there is an opportunity cost. If you're only trying to develop male wrestlers, you have twice as much time to spend on them. Every minute spent on Bianca Belair is a minute that wasn't spent on Kona Reeves (of course, it's equally valid to say that every moment spent on someone who came in as a finished product like Adam Cole is also a minute not spent on Kona Reeves, but I'll get to that in a moment).
And it's not just the women NXT was doing this with. They were also spending time on tag teams whereas the other developmental promotions didn't unless those teams were from wrestling families (Usos, Hart Dynasty. I can barely even remember any other teams that got called up as teams, other than the Major Brothers, and that's going back to 2007). And you can argue that spending time on tag teams and also on "short guys" like Cole, Gargano, and Ciampa (and, by the way, how about Ciampa as a guy whose mic skills improved in NXT?) is something they should have known not to because Vince would never push them to the top... but you could have made the exact same argument about the women when NXT started pushing them, and NXT (and specifically Hunter, Del Rey, William Regal, Ryan Ward, and Matt Bloom) did successfully change the culture on the main roster as far as women's wrestling goes.

It's been obvious that the PC has been going for quantity over quality pretty much since day 1. Well, maybe not over quality, but... main roster prospects I suppose? Of course NXT was never going to have a 100% success rate, but it feels awfully low considering the sheer amount of people they have down there. Also I kinda doubt that OVW/DSW/FCW ever had 100+ wrestlers in training, but you can argue that they also never had that many trainers and training facilities as well.

About the numbers being better when you add the women into the mix, I guess you can see it as both a good and kind of a bad thing overall (hold on for the explanation). Yes, the women who started/only went to NXT have more success on the MR, but a large part of it is because the women's revolution® cleaned up the division of most of the divas from the previous generation and thus they had the opportunity to establish themselves. When you look around today, the most tenured women overall are Natalya, Tamina, Naomi and then it's already the 4HW/Carmella/Bliss/Asuka. The issue is that not unlike the men, they seem to have a hard time finding the next wave of talent and both the current MR stars and top prospects in NXT are slowly getting up there in age. Not "ready for the geriatric aisle" of course, but more "it might be time if I wanna have kids". A lot of their younger female talent is actually on NXT UK of all places (well they like them young there, ok no).

As for the PWG comparison, that's nowhere near fair. A monkey could book PWG. It's just taking a list of top indy talent that are available that day and pulling names out of a hat. NXT has actual storylines.

I feel like Hunter did a lot of "hey look, shiny new toys and cool matches" over the years. Maybe he calmed down lately, I don't know.

They started off bland, sure, but I haven't found them bland for abut five years at this point.
But even if you do think they're bland, the promoter's job is to come up with ways to hide that blandness. Look at what NXT did with the AoP. They gave them a menacing manager who fit their image, and shot their promos in lighting designed to make them look more menacing. If someone isn't the most dynamic promo, you have them cut most of the promos in video package form, where you can do as many takes as you like and hide any awkward facial expressions (and distract people from any general sense of blandness) with clips of what they're talking about (or just of them doing cool things). Accentuate the positives and hide the negatives. That's what promoting is all about.

Of course you can hide weaknesses behind managers/carefully crafted video packages/interviews/other smoke and mirrors, but AOP had nothing besides Ellering, and I doubt he decided to not follow them on the MR at the last second like a dick. Again, Hunter should have realized sooner that he should be building those guys for the main roster and if Ellering was clear from the beginning and said that he's not going back on the road if they're called up, then he shouldn't have been put with AOP in the first place. Find someone else to be their manager (Hathaway was much later, right?), work on their promo delivery if you can't find a manager, anything that doesn't end up with Vince thinking "oh they're two guys in camo gear who can't talk, I see...".

[Big Red Machine]

I think Bliss might have had a shot if not for I'm not really sure who you think fits into this category other than maybe Crews, Jax, and Dana Brooke, and I think it's pretty much universally recognized that the latter two were called up before they were ready. Furthermore, I think there were a lot of people who were less bland in NXT and Vince made them blander when they were called up (Ember Moon, Ascension, Summer Rae, American Alpha, Heavy Machinery. We're even seeing it now with Karrion Kross. They took away his entrance and his symbolism and have reduced him to a catchphrase).

Crews, Moon, Ricochet, most of the 205 Live crew (well, when that was still a thing), Carrillo, Dijak, Yim, Balor, Lee, Andrade and a ton more who aren't there anymore/I'm not thinking of.

I'll give you Crews, Moon, Ricochet, Dijak, and Tony Nese from 205 Live, but I don't find any of those others bland, and even Ricochet does enough crazy stuff to make you forget about his blandness. I will admit that I am much fonder of general babyfaces than most, but I don't think that most of those guys you listed are bland (and especially not Lee and Balor).

Why are you assuming that they haven't been working with him and for whatever reason it's just not taking? You hire a guy like that because you don't know if your promo classes will work for him until you try. Yes, O'Reilly's downfall as a singles competitor in NXT has been the same thing that hurt him in ROH, but fr Seth Rollins, his strength on the main roster has been the thing he was the worst at in ROH. Pac was bland as f*ck, too, but look where he is now. Not all of that should be credited to NXT, but that's certainly where he really started to show improvement in that category.

I don't think anybody was expecting O'Reilly to become the second coming of The Rock, but he's been in NXT for four years with ample TV time and still can't cut a decent promo. At some point, you have to cut your losses and let him go. Even if they wanna send him to the MR as a tag team guy, you have to find the Michaels to his Janetty (which neither Fish or Roddy were) or he'll be DOA and released six months later anyway. NXT became so stale because they have a lot of guys who are stuck there for various reasons (not MR material, don't wanna be called up, too old, etc). NXT needs a rolling roster, not a stagnant one. All promotions do to be honest, but a developmental one more than anything.

I thought Fish was a fine talker to complement Kyle.

NXT actually hasn't had to sell out arenas very much, as their schedule has always been quite limited, and they really haven't had to do it since the downturn started.

I guess they only had to fill up the Takeover arenas and Full Sail every X weeks.

Plus some house-show swings around the country that did relatively well, but yes. And they filled Full Sail up most (if not all) of the time.

Your point about size and tenure is taken (although, again, who did OVW produce towards the end? And NXT is at about the point in terms of tenure as developmental where OVW was when WWE dropped them), but when you add the women back in, NXT's record looks a lot better. I'm not holding not developing bigger-name female stars against the others because that wasn't their directive at the time, but there is an opportunity cost. If you're only trying to develop male wrestlers, you have twice as much time to spend on them. Every minute spent on Bianca Belair is a minute that wasn't spent on Kona Reeves (of course, it's equally valid to say that every moment spent on someone who came in as a finished product like Adam Cole is also a minute not spent on Kona Reeves, but I'll get to that in a moment).
And it's not just the women NXT was doing this with. They were also spending time on tag teams whereas the other developmental promotions didn't unless those teams were from wrestling families (Usos, Hart Dynasty. I can barely even remember any other teams that got called up as teams, other than the Major Brothers, and that's going back to 2007). And you can argue that spending time on tag teams and also on "short guys" like Cole, Gargano, and Ciampa (and, by the way, how about Ciampa as a guy whose mic skills improved in NXT?) is something they should have known not to because Vince would never push them to the top... but you could have made the exact same argument about the women when NXT started pushing them, and NXT (and specifically Hunter, Del Rey, William Regal, Ryan Ward, and Matt Bloom) did successfully change the culture on the main roster as far as women's wrestling goes.

It's been obvious that the PC has been going for quantity over quality pretty much since day 1. Well, maybe not over quality, but... main roster prospects I suppose? Of course NXT was never going to have a 100% success rate, but it feels awfully low considering the sheer amount of people they have down there. Also I kinda doubt that OVW/DSW/FCW ever had 100+ wrestlers in training, but you can argue that they also never had that many trainers and training facilities as well.

Exactly. There is scale here that has to be considered, and just look at baseball. A very small percentage of minor leaguers ever become MLB mainstays. Obviously the situations are not completely the same, but my point is that it's not a direct ratio of trainers and trainees to main roster success. The more people you have, the more people who are people you're just taking a chance on. For a random football player you sign to turn out to be Bill Goldberg is rare, so you when you're willing to spend money you cast as wide a net as possible and sign a whole lot of them to increase the chances of finding that rare one.

About the numbers being better when you add the women into the mix, I guess you can see it as both a good and kind of a bad thing overall (hold on for the explanation). Yes, the women who started/only went to NXT have more success on the MR, but a large part of it is because the women's revolution® cleaned up the division of most of the divas from the previous generation and thus they had the opportunity to establish themselves. When you look around today, the most tenured women overall are Natalya, Tamina, Naomi and then it's already the 4HW/Carmella/Bliss/Asuka. The issue is that not unlike the men, they seem to have a hard time finding the next wave of talent and both the current MR stars and top prospects in NXT are slowly getting up there in age. Not "ready for the geriatric aisle" of course, but more "it might be time if I wanna have kids". A lot of their younger female talent is actually on NXT UK of all places (well they like them young there, ok no).

I don't totally agree with your take about them "cleaning out" the division of "Divas" being a key ingredient in the success of the Horsewomen on the main roster. Yes, they fazed out the Aksanas and Camerons of the world, but Alicia Fox still got a lot of screen time. They just kept her off doing something else. And then you had the women like Nikki Bella and Naomi, who got better when they were allowed to have more time for their matches. They could have still kept the divas around but isolated them doing "Diva" things (being valets and having short matches) while giving the Horsewomen, Nattie, etc. the same amount of time they actually did give them and it would have gone just as well.

As for the PWG comparison, that's nowhere near fair. A monkey could book PWG. It's just taking a list of top indy talent that are available that day and pulling names out of a hat. NXT has actual storylines.

I feel like Hunter did a lot of "hey look, shiny new toys and cool matches" over the years. Maybe he calmed down lately, I don't know.

Of course he did, but he spent the time to set up actual angles to build up to those matches, and the outcomes of the matches mattered to their futures. What Excalibur and Super Dragon have been doing for the past seven years (at least) has essentially been to fly to California to see how many snowflakes Meltzer will give them. Who wins and who loses doesn't matter and there is no build to anything.

]They started off bland, sure, but I haven't found them bland for abut five years at this point.
But even if you do think they're bland, the promoter's job is to come up with ways to hide that blandness. Look at what NXT did with the AoP. They gave them a menacing manager who fit their image, and shot their promos in lighting designed to make them look more menacing. If someone isn't the most dynamic promo, you have them cut most of the promos in video package form, where you can do as many takes as you like and hide any awkward facial expressions (and distract people from any general sense of blandness) with clips of what they're talking about (or just of them doing cool things). Accentuate the positives and hide the negatives. That's what promoting is all about.

Of course you can hide weaknesses behind managers/carefully crafted video packages/interviews/other smoke and mirrors, but AOP had nothing besides Ellering, and I doubt he decided to not follow them on the MR at the last second like a dick. Again, Hunter should have realized sooner that he should be building those guys for the main roster and if Ellering was clear from the beginning and said that he's not going back on the road if they're called up, then he shouldn't have been put with AOP in the first place. Find someone else to be their manager (Hathaway was much later, right?), work on their promo delivery if you can't find a manager, anything that doesn't end up with Vince thinking "oh they're two guys in camo gear who can't talk, I see...".

I actually thought it was Vince who nixed Ellering, but I could be wrong.
Yes, Stokely was much later.
And Vince' s thought-process shouldn't be "oh, they're two guys in camo gear who can't talk," and therefore they're useless. He should be thinking "how can I hide this weakness?" The problem is that Vince decided that managers are bad, so he didn't want to give people any. In the past decade, the only ones I can think of have been Heyman (who was only working with Brock at first), MVP, Drake Maverick for AoP, and Lana for Rusev (and in that case part of it was that Vince thought it fit the gimmick better for him to have a manager).

[KILLdozer]

Bronson Reed isn't surprising...

I mean...how long can you go around talking about "fat boys " while ALSO calling yourself a "fat boy"???