The 5 Best (& 5 Worst) Pros From NXT's Game Show Days
Before NXT was the “third brand” of World Wrestling Entertainment, it was a far-less-acclaimed in-ring game show, where wrestlers from WWE developmental were subjected to degrading challenges, trivia, or karaoke contests, and occasional wrestling matches. Part of the set-up of the show was that each NXT “Rookie” was paired with a “Pro,” which usually meant that a WWE midcarder who isn’t too busy.
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While the show was a mixed bag at its extremely tip-top best, not all Rookie/Pro pairings were created equal. There were actually some really good Pros in the mix that contributed to the show constructively while others were utter failures.
10 Best: William Regal
Given that he’s been the principal of NXT for years, it’s kind of awesome that William Regal has been part of the show ever since its less-respectable days. Regal is always a positive force, and the idea of him coaching a Rookie is definitely a recipe for success -- even when, in Season 1, he’s paired with Skip Sheffield as his Rookie. The pre-Ryback version of the wrestler is a bit of a doofus, so having someone like Regal as his Pro makes for a fun “odd couple” sort of pairing.
9 Worst: Hornswoggle
WWE’s worst joke besides “Photoshop gag on the Titantron” is “use of Hornswoggle,” so, of course, an NXT Rookie was going to be saddled with pro wrestling’s go-to leprechaun character as his or her pro. Surprisingly, it didn’t happen until the fifth season, as Hornswoggle found himself mentoring Titus O’Neil. The whole scenario reeks of two unfunny jokes: not only does pairing a large black man with a white little person scream “bad WWE comedy,” but there’s also some lazy humor in the fact that Titus’ ring name is vaguely Irish.
8 Best: CM Punk
The best Rookie/Pro pairings offered an interesting dynamic, often based in friction, and one of the better pairings of Season 1 had CM Punk mentoring Rookie Darren Young.
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At the time, CM Punk was leading his own stable, The Straight Edge Society, and Darren Young was presented as a Miami party guy, so Punk regularly criticized Young’s hedonistic lifestyle, forcing the young wrestler to adhere to Punk’s own standards.
7 Worst: Alberto Del Rio
Not every Rookie/Pro pairing can be perfect, and Alberto Del Rio drew the short end of the stick when he got Connor O’Brien -- pre-Ascension Konnor -- as his Rookie. The pairing had some potential given that Del Rio is a sophisticated aristocrat and O’Brien was some kind of weird rat person, but this barely manifested in anything good, save for Ricardo Rodriguez trying to kill Connor O’Brien with rat poison.
6 Best: LayCool
In Season 2 of NXT, Rookie Kaval -- better known outside of WWE as Low-Ki -- ended up getting a two-for-one deal when it came to his Pro. Michelle McCool and Layla, collectively known as LayCool, ended up taking Kaval under his wing, making for a fun dynamic as this pair of obnoxious heels made life harder for a very serious indie wrestler. And it obviously paid off, as Kaval ended up winning that season.
5 Worst: The Bella Twins
Season 3 of NXT was the all-female season of the show, which gave WWE’s female talent a spotlight while simultaneously giving heel Michael Cole a safe space to bury all talent in sight, as WWE was still about half a decade away from taking women’s wrestling seriously.
The most forgotten member of this cast was Rookie Jamie, who had The Bella Twins as her Pros. Given their wrestling abilities at the time, Nikki and Brie weren’t exactly fit to mentor anyone, and Jamie was released from WWE as soon as she was eliminated from the show.
4 Best: The Miz
As a heel, The Miz is the perfect Pro for a certain kind of NXT dynamic. As a self-obsessed heel with delusions of grandeur, The Miz is a terrible choice to mentor literally anyone, and thus a great choice to foster pro wrestling drama.
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Miz would have two stints as a Pro on NXT, each with a different result. His mentoring of Daniel Bryan in Season 1 would earn him a career-long blood rival, while in Season 2 he’d gain a pretty decent sidekick in the form of Alex Riley.
3 Worst: Chavo Guerrero
The downside of WWE’s choice in lower and midcard Pros is that there was a high chance that one of them would end up getting released in the middle of the season, creating the need for a replacement. This actually happened during Season 5, as Chavo Guerrero was initially the mentor to Darren Young, but ended up leaving the company weeks into the show. His replacement ended up being JTG, which tells you how important Chavo was to WWE at this point.
2 Best: Daniel Bryan
Originally a “Rookie” in Season 1 and the first to be eliminated from the show, Daniel Bryan found himself as a Pro in Season 4, mentoring Derrick Bateman (now known as EC3).
The pair put together some great comedy segments during their time together, with Bryan working perfectly as the straight man to the goofy Bateman. The highlight of their time together on the show would occur in a Dating Game style “How Well Do You Know Your Rookie” segment where the two had obviously cheated at the game.
1 Worst: Yoshi Tatsu
Having debuted on ECW in 2009, Yoshi Tatsu was certainly an established talent by the time the first season of NXT started airing. Originally introduced on the fifth season of the show NXT Redemption as Byron Saxton’s Pro, Yoshi and Byron really failed to have any chemistry. Eventually, Bryon would be eliminated after a few months. Yoshi Tatsu stuck around, however, as Redemption slowly began to forget about the whole “game show” thing and the Japanese star ended up having his best WWE match ever against Tyson Kidd.
