WWE NXT: Ranking Every Performer to Hold the NXT Championship

Credit: WWE.com

Often as not, WWE’s developmental show feels more like the real main event. The NXT Championship has become one of the most prestigious prizes in professional wrestling. These are the performers who made it possible.

Ever since 2012, when WWE shifted its developmental system from FCW to the reborn NXT under the supervision of Triple H, fans have been treated to a renaissance of incredible performers and matches. It is not at all uncommon for reports of main roster talent feeling upstaged to surface on the weekends of TakeOver shows, which are themselves often considered to vastly overshadow the major shows for which they are intended to serve as an appetizer.

As a result, the show’s top prize, the NXT Championship has cemented itself in the minds of WWE fans as one of the most prestigious titles in the entire industry, with frequent four plus star battles being waged for the honor of being called Champion. In an era in which championships often feel more like props than trophies, the NXT Championship has somehow managed to maintain its air of prestige.

Since the NXT’s , fourteen unique champions have held the belt a combined sixteen times. While some have certainly been better than others in the role of the yellow brand’s standard bearer, none have been quite so bad as to be called an embarrassment.

With that in mind, let’s take a trip down to Full Sail University and try to settle once and for all who is truly the best of the best when it comes to NXT Champions. Factors to be considered include length of reign, quality of matches and storylines, and the less quantifiable “impact” that the performer had as Champion.