You have all read the articles about the “NXT Champion Curse” in some form or fashion.  Many wrestling fans have listed every NXT Champion from Seth Rollins on up to determine whether or not their title reigns amounted to them seeing massive success on the main roster.  This is not one of those articles.

This particular curse that I am referring to actually does not date back all that far, but there seems to be a growing statistic with the NXT Champions going back to the summer of 2020 that is really worth analyzing.  That case is that, following Adam Cole’s longstanding reign as NXT Champion for four-hundred three days, the champions we have seen post-Cole and up to the recent Samoa Joe incident have either had reigns cut short due to injury or have had disappointing and/or short-lived runs that left a lot to be desired.  Among the wrestlers on that list are: Keith Lee, Karrion Kross, Finn Balor, and Samoa Joe.

First and foremost, the “injury curse” is something that you can trace all the way back to Tommaso Ciampa’s incident in March of 2019, where he had to relinquish the title for neck surgery.  However, even as far back as 2019, NXT’s main event scene was firing on all cylinders, to the point where they had plenty of options to run with to find a replacement champion and top title program.  Hence, we got the Adam Cole/Johnny Gargano rivalry that many NXT fans still view as the best NXT Championship feud to this day.

However, by July of 2020, things had radically shifted for NXT.  Their main event picture was not as hot, you could clearly start to see the cracks in the long-term booking strategies, and it is also important to remember during this time, Vince McMahon had been assembling a mass group of call-ups to main roster television.  Whereas in previous years, the idea would be that you would see two or three NXT call-ups in a given year, by 2020, you were starting to see double the call-ups in a shorter period of time.  So it really became impossible for NXT to even build their main event scene, with the understanding that Vince would want a hold of these talents if they started to gain even an iota of traction.

It is important to break down and analyze the (in)significance of the post-Cole NXT Champions list to better understand the gravity of the situation:

Beginning with Keith Lee’s NXT Title win (July 8-August 22 of 2020), his title reign had a lot of potential.  Not only did he dethrone Adam Cole as the longest reigning NXT Champion at the Great American Bash, but he also had previously won the NXT North American Championship and came out of this match a duel champion (NXT’s first and only duel champion).  Unfortunately, that crowning achievement was the peak of Lee’s title reign, because everything that happened afterwards completely thwarted his momentum.  First, he voluntarily (randomly) relinquished his North American Championship on TV under his own volition with zero hype and zero reasoning, other than to “prevent others from earning opportunities.”  And that was a blanket statement, in and of itself.  Then, he entered a title feud with Karrion Kross and lost his championship clean at  Takeover XXX in, what I still believe is and was, his only documented title defense.  All of this occurred within the span of a month and a half.  What did Keith get out of all of this?  He received the “don’t let the door hit you on the rear on the way out” treatment, as this match served as Lee’s final swan song for NXT.  And we all know what happened once he reached the main roster.

Then there is the whole Karrion Kross saga.  His first title win (August 22-26 of 2020) lasted all of four days before having to relinquish the title due to suffering a shoulder separation in his match with Keith Lee at Takeover.  His second title win (April 8-August 22 of 2021) served him better, but a common agreement among many NXT fans was that there was always a missing puzzle piece with Kross during his title reign.  In fact, now that I look at it in hindsight, August 22 is not a statistically great day for poor Karrion Kross.  Aside from that, his matches were mostly substandard, his title reign did not seem as impactful as it should have, and there also seemed to be a general consensus that, while Kross was the champion at the time, NXT was deliberately passing up on the opportunity to run with Kyle O’Reilly as the champion.  Factor this all in with him dropping the strap to a forty-two year old, out-of-shape Samoa Joe at Takeover 36, Kross’ “title redemption reign” never felt as meaningful as it should have.  And let us not even begin to detail his main roster run at the moment.

I do not want to gloss over Finn Balor.  Among the list of names of the post-Cole title curse, many people would rate Balor’s title reign as a massive success.  And to an extent, that is true.  However, when you really split hairs and examine Balor’s title reign for what it was, his championship run served as more of a transitional role than anything else.  It was actually something very counterculture to what we were accustomed to seeing with NXT Champions for its entire existence.  The idea at this time was that, even though Kross was out with injury, he was still the priority and the focus of who they wanted as their champion upon his return.  In the meantime, they needed a longer-term placeholder champion that they could rely on to deliver quality main event matches and serve as their top talent for a period of time; Balor was the perfect fit for that moment.  While you still had guys like Ciampa, Gargano, and Cole, Balor was fresher to the scene and had more momentum from fans than most of the roster.  So while Balor was a good-fitting champion for their particular circumstance at that point, he was never their focus of attention; he was “right place, right time.”  His title reign served as more of a “thank you” than any kind of milestone story redemption or career resurgence.  That is not to say that any of this is to degrade or belittle the impact of Balor’s title reign, but we also have to be pragmatic about this.  Simply put, had Kross not been injured, do you think NXT had any storyline plans or long-term goal to put the title on Balor?

That ultimately brings us to the Samoa Joe situation.  His title reign (August 22-September 12, 2021) lasted all of twenty-one days, having not defended his title a single time and having only made one televised appearance since winning the title at Takeover 36.  The odd thing about this “injury” is that it remains undisclosed, even as of the writing of this article, September 18.  No news sources have provided an update on what the damage is, his expected recovery time, a return date, nothing.  It is almost as if there is more to the story that we are not being informed of.  Of course, this is insignificant in terms of course direction for the NXT Title, seeing as how Ciampa successfully won the title this past Tuesday on NXT television in a four-way against Pete Dunne, LA Knight, and (some guy named) Von Wagner (and no, he is not a music composer.  I checked).  All that said, this circles back to the “championship curse” theory, and Joe is not excluded from that conversation.  Whether or not the injury is grave does not invalidate the fact that he is another victim of the post-Cole championship situation.

What do you think?  Is this is the Post-Cole NXT Championship Title Curse?  The only thing we can hope for coming out of this is that Ciampa does not meet the same fate as the other names on this list.

Sources:

• Wikimedia Foundation. (2021, September 15). List of nxt champions. Wikipedia. Retrieved September 18, 2021, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NXT_Champions.