The dust had barely settled from Survivor Series over the last two nights before Paige made her long awaited return on Raw. The former 2-time Divas champion disrupted a women's fatal 4-way #1 contender's match, and introduced her two new friends, NXT call-ups Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose, the latter the latest addition to the cast of "Total Divas". Alicia Fox, the only heel in the match, ran like a scared little girl. Mickie James, Bayley, & Sasha Banks were left lying.
Current Raw women's champ Alexa Bliss thought she could make friends with the newcomers. Nope, she was laid to waste as well, proving that the self-declared goddess is mortal after all.
24 hours later, on Smackdown, three more NXT stars debuted. Ruby Riot, who looks like she could be a better match for Harley Quinn than Bliss, Liv Morgan (Enzo Amore's ex-girlfriend), and Sarah Logan wiped out Naomi and Becky Lynch, then proceeded to emerge through the crowd to take out Natalya and Charlotte, disrupting the women's title rematch.
The same exact storyline, running through both shows at the same time? What could this lead to?
Well, even with the ladies first approach, I'd say a full-scale NXT invasion would be in the offing, and there's a way to make this work.
Consider how a number of men & women called up from NXT in recent years have been largely mishandled by Vince McMahon's Uncreative team. McMahon & Kevin Dunn don't get the appeal of the likes of Enzo Amore, Asuka, et al, and we as fans complain about how those performers are being "misused".
Enter Triple H. While the current father figure in NXT is played up as a heel on Raw when he shouldn't be, he should be leading the revolution against his father-in-law. Granted, this is also Paige's last chance in WWE before she eventually is future endeavored, and I'd see her new pals turning on her at some point. I've spent a lot of space here blasting McMahon for his myopic mindset and refusal to step aside, and it's justified. Could this be the end-game for the senile chairman? If you're an NXT fan, it should be, but knowing McMahon, it ain't going to work that way.
Already, the scuttlebutt has it that the 4 Horsewomen (Bayley, Charlotte, Sasha, & Becky) will come together to face this threat before meeting their MMA counterparts, likely at Wrestlemania. That's fine, but why waste five new female competitors that quickly?
No, I think what we're going to see is eventually Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn leading a rebellion on the men's side, too. Owens is set to face Randy Orton next week on Smackdown, and I think that's where things will start to percolate on the men's side. I may be wrong, but that would be the direction to take. It would jack up the ratings for Raw AND Smackdown, and force the warring siblings, Shane & Stephanie, to come together themselves against a common threat. Maybe.
Picture it if you can. A larger than usual field in the Royal Rumble, with more NXT talent mixed in, and there's the talk of a women's Rumble, too. If Vince McMahon and Uncreative don't get this right, then this may be their end-game.
