10 top Superstars to have graduated from NXT

Nakamura thrived in NXT and has continued to impress since joining Smackdown Live

#1 Seth Rollins

Rollins on arguably his crowning night, defeating John Cena to become a double champion at Summerslam 2015

How fitting, that the man who defeated Jinder Mahal to become the first ever NXT Champion, takes the top spot on this list. Seth Rollins exploded into NXT, upon its inception back in 2012, clearly demonstrating that he had all the potential to achieve amazing things.

As already mentioned, Rollins enjoyed a massively successful initial post-NXT career alongside Reigns and Ambrose, but it’s more what he’s achieved since that point, that elevates Rollins above Reigns on this list. In mid-2014, when The Shield first split up, everybody was expecting Reigns or Ambrose to become the big stars of the trio.

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Nobody expected Rollins to achieve quite the level of success that he has, but he snatched every possible opportunity to find himself today, in 2017, announced as the cover star of the WWE 2K18 video game. Recent names to grace the cover of WWE’s video games include The Rock, John Cena, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Brock Lesnar, a stark illustration of just how far Rollins has come since his NXT days, a mere 5 years ago.

Alongside his aforementioned accolades, Seth Rollins won the 2014 Money In The Bank briefcase shortly after departing The Shield, which allowed him to subsequently become the first man to cash in that contract at WrestleMania, pinning his ex-stablemate Reigns to become champion. Rollins is a former WWE Tag Team Champion, US Champion and a two-time WWE World Heavyweight Champion, and also the first man ever to hold the WWE and United States Championships at the same time.

A frankly astonishing list of accolades, made even more amazing by the fact that Rollins is nowhere near his full potential yet. NXT’s most successful graduate to the main roster, without question, has to be Seth Rollins.

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Edited by Staff Editor
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