NXT: The Future Is Now

Sportswriter Robinson (Ultimate Warrior) sets out to tell the whole story of NXT, a fast-growing new offshoot of the mainstream World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) behemoth, but the book is too much of an insider narrative for readers who don’t already know the WWE world. “WWE is stadiums and massive arenas and pyro assaulting your senses. NXT is about the in-ring product,” says NXT executive Paul Levesque, better known as former WWE world champion Triple H (and WWE kingpin Vince McMahon’s son-in-law). Levesque’s vision of NXT helped the WWE expand and draw in some of the top wrestlers who weren’t already in the company, and much of the story is told through his words. Unfortunately, Robinson includes little context to help newcomers grasp who the interviewees are or what their significance is. For example, Windham Rotunda, who used NXT as a stepping stone to WWE stardom as Bray Wyatt, explains how his character developed through the years, but readers don’t learn that his father, uncles, and grandfather all wrestled, or that he played college football. Amid the back-patting and celebration of the “anti-establishment feeling” of a product that is actually an integral part of the WWE, exposition and explanation are missing and the basics of storytelling have been forgotten. Color photos. (Apr.)