Back in November, NXT Women’s Champion Bayley said she was in “no rush” to get to WWE’s main roster, explaining how she thinks what’s happening in NXT right now is special and that she wouldn’t want to miss out on it. The “why am I still in NXT” question has a few standard responses now — NXT’s great, it’s its own brand, they’re happy to be a part of something that’s growing — but current NXT Champ Finn Bálor said it best: Getting called up is now seen as a step back.
Talking to Sam Roberts, Finn dropped a “quote unquote” when referring to the main roster, and said that showing up on Raw or Smackdown while NXT’s becoming a touring company with sold-out arena shows would be “detrimental” to his career.
The quote:
“I really believe that what we’re doing here in the [WWE] Performance Center [and] what we’re doing with NXT is something that’s going to be remembered for years. I feel like to get quote, unquote called up to the main roster would be, maybe, like a step back for my career right [now]. Obviously, instant gratification, you get called up to the main roster, that’s great, but I think what we’re doing here in NXT will stand longer in history as kind of like a revolutionary period, and to kind of pull myself out of that would be detrimental to my career in the long term.”
Bálor defends the NXT Championship against Samoa Joe in the main-event of NXT TakeOver: London this Wednesday. What, is that not as good as showing up as a background character on a Christmas skit and still not having a match on a three-hour show?
