NXT: An Undisputed Era/Forgotten Sons feud won’t help either team

On the most recent episode of NXT, Forgotten Sons’ heater Jaxson Ryker continued to terrorize members of the Undisputed Era.

Have you ever heard of the Sunk Cost Fallacy? Basically, it’s the idea that people make decisions based on emotion rather than logic, and the more they invest in something, the harder it is for them to abandon it, regardless of performance.

This phenomenon doesn’t fully explain The Forgotten Sons’ quasi-push in NXT, but it does put their ongoing television presence into perspective.

Despite the groans and go-away heat they consistently elicit from any crowd they perform in front of, the trio of Wesley Blake, Steve Cutler, and Jaxson Ryker remain a focal point of a rebuilding NXT tag team division.

So, after engaging in brief, listless feuds with The Street Profits (Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford) and Danny Burch and Oney Lorcan, it appears these three have a new target in their sights: The Undisputed Era.

From a narrative standpoint, fans probably should’ve seen this coming considering that The Undisputed Era brutalized Ryker with a ladder on the May 29th NXT.

But with Ryker costing UE members Kyle O’Reilly and Roderick Strong their match against Burch and Lorcan on last Wednesday’s broadcast seemingly signaling the start of a full-fledged program between these entities, it’s fair to wonder whether this is the right direction for the NXT creative team to go in.

In short, the answer is no; neither team has anything to gain from a prolonged feud.

Let’s start with The Forgotten Sons, who are the wrestling equivalent of Ambien.

Relative to their semi-prominent position on the card, literally nothing about this team stands out: their promos are boring, their workrate is bland by today’s standards, their look and gimmick is generic, and their names are straight out of a WWE 2K create-a-wrestler workshop.

Not to turn this into an extended Forgotten Sons roast session — my colleague Laura Mauro has already taken care of that in delightful detail on this very site — but this faction has produced zero exciting moments since their introduction. A series of matches with some combination of O’Reilly, Strong, or Bobby Fish won’t change that.

It would be one thing if this were the start of an Undisputed Era babyface turn, but with the Street Profits set to embark on their maiden reign as NXT Tag Team Champion, and no one on the horizon to take Adam Cole’s spot as the top heel, that doesn’t seem likely.

This leaves the less desirable Option B: the NXT writers turn the Forgotten Sons face to oppose Undisputed Era.

That would be a mistake. Even the most affable babyfaces who cut engaging promos and are prolific in-ring workers struggle to maintain favorable reactions against the cool heels of Full Sail; what chance would a babyface version of these dull, Sons of Anarchy cosplayers have to get over.

Ultimately, a potential feud between these groups would put both in a no-win situation. Even if it goes well, most fans would probably heap most of the praise on The Undisputed Era while Blake, Cutler, and Ryker would, at best, would earn lauds like “maybe they’re not so bad” or “they were better than I thought”. But this won’t lead to many fans completely flipping their opinion of these three.

The downsides are far more apparent. Fish, O’Reilly, and Strong, who have been all but reduced to henchmen over the last couple months, could be defined down even further if they become crash test dummies for the melatonin menaces.

Even if they won the feud, it wouldn’t mean much since The Forgotten Sons haven’t been established as a legitimate tag team threat.

On the other side, the fans could become further disenchanted with the bargain bin Aces and Eights if they buzzsaw their way through a popular team in a manner as mundane as every other aspect of their schtick. And, again, unless these three do something extraordinary, they likely wouldn’t receive the bulk of the credit if this hypothetical program turned out to be entertaining.

But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the NXT crew has seen something in Blake, Cutler, and Ryker that they haven’t gotten a chance to showcase on the weekly show.

Maybe these two stables can bring out the best of one another and we’ll get a scintillating feud that elevates everyone involved.

Given what the Forgotten Sons have shown us so far, that seems improbable. But it looks like Triple H and the writers are going to move forward with this storyline, so hopefully, The Forgotten Sons can prove they are worth the time and effort that the developmental brand has invested in them.