Appreciating Sami Zayn vs. Samoa Joe and Exposing the Distance from Main Roster to NXT

Light years could only be the unit with which we could measure the distance between WWE’s main roster product and NXT. This fact was underlined once again at the March 9, 2016, episode of NXT where Sami Zayn and Samoa Joe delivered an instant classic.

The tale of two talented artists

It takes courage to book a match for the entirety of a wrestling show. And this courage is one of the factors that set apart NXT from the other WWE shows.

When Zayn and Joe opened the show with their two out of three falls match, the fans clearly did not expect them to go the distance. They knew that the match was going to be epic, but working the whole show and delivering a classic was least expected.

If these two were booked in Ring of Honor or some other independent promotion under the same circumstances, everyone would’ve expected an hour long war between these two. But as it was a match booked under the WWE banner, it surprised everyone when Zayn and Joe did what they did.

The setting was simple: They wanted to know who was worthy to challenge Finn Balor for the NXT Championship. When the final bell rang to mark the end of the match, we knew that Samoa Joe deserved his shot at the title. The beauty of simplicity was there to be seen.

These two artists told a tale that wrestling fans could cherish for the years to come.

Without the physical presence of the championship or the champion, Zayn, and Joe made the NXT title valuable. They were willing to put their life on the line just for the sake of getting a shot at it. It is this sort of booking that the main roster misses out. But then again, it would be unfair to say that NXT is better than the main roster product.

Catering to the larger audience

The main roster has to appeal to an audience which is many times larger than that of the NXT audience. This includes fans that follow the product casually, passionately or passively. From this, it is probably the second category that tunes into NXT.

They are aware of how two artists tell a story in between the ropes and also have the patience to sit through a one hour match so that they could enjoy the art form.

If we put this same one-hour long match on an episode of Raw, a good portion of the fans are bound to get bored and switch the channel. This is WWE’s biggest problem right now; their main roster audience has different tastes. With nothing to specialize in, WWE goes beating around the bush and comes up with storylines that are half baked on the best days.

The simplicity of two men fighting over a cause is not projected here because it is treated more like a business model to please the large fan base and sponsors rather than a wrestling promotion. NXT does not need this branding, it emphasis on the art form of wrestling, the beauty of simplicity and of course, the talent of its performers.

Zayn and Joe excelled in such a platform and reminded us that wrestling is all about the little things.