Featuring more WWE NXT names on the main roster is working

WWE NXT is seeing positive growth and part of that is due to featuring the brand and its stars on both Monday Night Raw and SmackDown. 

October 10, or pro wrestling’s version of “Super Tuesday,” has come and gone. According to early numbers, WWE NXT “won” the ratings battle in both total viewership and the key demographic. There’s not much to really take from that, as AEW Dynamite was on a different night and NXT stacked the card with many big names. However, the steady growth of NXT numbers helps the argument that slowly featuring these young stars on the main roster is having a positive impact on NXT.

The perception of WWE NXT is a challenging conversation. WWE describes the show as “developmental” even though it holds a primary slot on television each week. Vince McMahon once put serious interest in the product, which led to the massive overhaul that became NXT 2.0, but thankfully that time has long ended.

Now, Shawn Michaels is running the product and there’s clear improvement. The show features a heavy dose of wrestling and long-term storytelling with character development, and with these improvements, the ratings are slowly growing. Fightful is one of many different outlets that covers the weekly ratings, with a tracker going back to the show’s launch in 2019. There are several points where NXT hit the low 500K each week, but that has turned around. Along with October 10, four of the last five weeks have reached more than 824k viewers. Going back to July, several weeks in both that month and August exceeded 703k viewers. Those are great numbers for a product that many complained about as the worst television content across major promotions each week.

The big boost seen as of late can be widely attributed to Becky Lynch’s run as WWE NXT champion. Her matches and segments continue to draw in strong viewership, and she remains on Monday Night Raw where she shines the light on other names like Teagon Nox. This is a great move to continue to increase exposure for the talent that will lead WWE’s roster in the next generation.

Featuring NXT names on WWE’s main roster content is also a positive move. Performers like Dragon Lee and Carmelo Hayes both stepped into big matches on SmackDown and Raw. Roxanne Perez also took on Rhea Ripley in a prior episode of SmackDown. It will be interesting to see if this strategy continues to grow. With individuals like Bron Breakker, and Ivy Nile, and groups like The Creed Brothers almost caught in quicksand on NXT, this would be a great way to begin bringing them into the main roster as The Royal Rumble nears.

This is a great time in professional wrestling. AEW and WWE are surging in their own ways, and other promotions like Stardom, New Japan, and IMPACT are finding their own wins. Seeing more stars from NXT on both SmackDown and Raw is an excellent step by WWE and a great way to continue to draw eyeballs back to the Tuesday show.