6 WWE Superstars Triple H pushed but Vince McMahon did not
As the mastermind and founder of the WWE NXT brand, Triple H has the responsibility of overseeing the creative direction of the company’s next crop of Superstars.
Although NXT has become a viable alternative to RAW and SmackDown, especially since it began airing as a live two-hour show every week, it is fair to say that the majority of NXT Superstars aim to one day perform on the RAW and SmackDown brands.
In the early years of the NXT-to-main roster process, WWE viewers witnessed the career progression of Superstars including Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose and Bray Wyatt, and it looked at one stage as though almost every NXT call-up was destined to work.
However, as we have seen on numerous occasions over the last few years, some people who thrived on Triple H’s NXT brand have not been able to maintain that momentum under the stewardship of Vince McMahon.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at six WWE Superstars who received a push from Triple H in NXT before finding themselves out of the picture on Vince McMahon’s main roster.
#5 Triple H pushed Konnor & Viktor but Vince McMahon did not
In the space of eight months, Triple H’s WWE NXT brand had three different Tag Team Championship holders after the titles were introduced in 2013 (Neville & Oliver Grey, Erick Rowan & Luke Harper and Neville & Corey Graves).
The Ascension’s Konnor & Viktor then defeated Neville & Graves on an October 2013 episode of NXT to begin their record-setting 343-day reign as NXT Tag Team Champions.
At the time, the main roster only had one set of Tag Team titles, with The Usos and Cody Rhodes & Goldust among those battling it out in the tag division, while Triple H focused on tag teams that could go on to have success in WWE in the years to come.
Unfortunately, in The Ascension’s case, their December 2014 call-up from Triple H’s NXT did not go as expected.
Granted, they picked up a statement-making victory over The New Age Outlaws at the 2015 Royal Rumble, but the most memorable moment from their early days on the main roster came when the nWo, APA and New Age Outlaws attacked them in a segment on RAW.
The Ascension’s WWE characters never recovered from that moment, hence why they did not hold the Tag Team titles during their five years on the main roster.