The opposite end of the spectrum in comparison to the Top Stars of NXT TakeOver: Dallas breakdown is as always the list of wrestlers who will be left off the event entirely. Unfortunately, there just isn’t enough time to accommodate everybody on the roster unless a battle royal or something along those lines happens, and the call needs to be made to let some of the talent sit a show out.
For NXT in general, there is never as big of a noticeable absence of star power as what happens on the main roster, and this time around in Dallas, it’s even less of a factor. With the debuts of Austin Aries and Shinsuke Nakamura as well as folks like Sami Zayn, Finn Balor, Samoa Joe and more, the fans will have no shortage of people to be excited to see.
Still, here is a rundown of the names who won’t be competing in the ring on April 1st.
Tye Dillinger
After suffering an injury, Tye Dillinger missed out on a portion of the television tapings over the past two months, which effectively killed his chances of being included on this show. Granted, since he isn’t as big of a priority at the moment as the other men and women who are scheduled to compete, he probably wouldn’t have been given a spot to begin with, but he’s still the most notable singles star who will be on the sidelines.
Thankfully, Dillinger made his in-ring return at a live event on March 20th, so he could be utilized in some fashion at the show if they do tapings before or after it’s concluded, but those will only air in the weeks to follow as opposed to being on the actual televised program.
The Tag Teams
Dillinger is the only solo act on the men’s side of the roster who doesn’t have a match, but there are plenty of others who are predominantly tag team wrestlers who have nothing to do, too. In the case of Sawyer Fulton and Angelo Dawkins, those two seem to be collecting paychecks to specifically not wrestle, since they’re clearly on the bottom rung of the hierarchy ladder. It’s no surprise that they’re not scheduled for Dallas, although I would expect them to be filling in a lot of the gaps for the matches during Axxess where they’ll face off against some of the rookies like Tough Enough’s Josh Bredl and the Ealy brothers.
The Hype Bros, BAMF and The Vaudevillains have taken a major backseat to The Revival after they won their tag titles, basically playing second fiddle as the babyfaces to beat (in the case of The Hype Bros) or the heels that are out of the limelight (in regards to the latter two teams). These six men are probably going to follow suit with Dawkins and Fulton, but they may also compete in a dark match before TakeOver just to hype the crowd.
If they do, it would be smart to include Enzo Amore and Colin Cassady—the two biggest omissions of this entire roster when it comes to the TakeOver card. This isn’t the first time this has happened, either, and the way WWE is using them (or, rather, not using them) is quite confusing. This duo was named NXT Tag Team of the Year in the NXT Year-End Awards, but their track record has been terrible for months.
They’ve lost twice to Dash and Dawson at Roadblock and NXT TakeOver: London before that, got taken out of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic tournament in the quarterfinals and didn’t compete at all at NXT TakeOver: Respect, and they weren’t even wrestling on the card in Brooklyn where they should have been heavily featured. They lost their tag title match at Unstoppable, didn’t compete at Rival, or R Evolution. It seems as though it’s a running gag for them not to appear, but why?
Here’s hoping they make their debut on the main roster either at WrestleMania or the night after on Monday Night Raw, cause if that isn’t the case and they’re just valued so little to be consistently ignored like this, there would be no reason to believe they’ll ever receive a proper push.
The Women
Since BAMF and Enzo and Cass won’t be involved on the card, you can count out Alexa Bliss and Carmella making an appearance even outside of the ring, let alone between the ropes. Perennial backup players Billie Kay and Peyton Royce are no surprise, as they’ve yet to compete in singles matches on a TakeOver card, but they’ve made lots of progress over the past few months and they will eventually move up the ranks enough for that to happen.
While fans of Royce and Kay shouldn’t be scared that their stock has fallen, the same might not be true for Eva Marie and Nia Jax. At one point, it seemed as though All Red and Black Everything (stupid name, Eva…don’t try to make that a thing) were at the top of the push list, but now they’re more All Red and Black Nothing. In the grand scheme of things, this is a good decision, as both of them still need a lot of fine tuning with their in-ring skills before they’re given more serious roles, and since Bayley has defeated the duo to retain her title, it wouldn’t make sense for either of them to get a title shot over Asuka.
Speaking of Asuka, she’s singlehandedly taken Dana Brooke and Emma out of the equation at different times with injuries. Whether she’s working too rough of a style or just got paired up with two people who were taking the wrong moves at the wrong time and fell victim to random injuries, they’ve both lost to Asuka at TakeOver events in similar fashion to Bayley defeating Nia and Eva. As such, even if they were both working at 100%, they would be in the back of the line.
So out of these men and women, who are you most disappointed won’t be wrestling at NXT TakeOver: Dallas? Can you think of a way you would have liked them to be booked on the card? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!
