4. A New Hope: Leaders of the New School
Kevin Owens. Finn Balor. Neville. Sami Zayn. Hideo Itami.
It reads like a who’s who of today’s top-tier of professional wrestling. The WWE themselves dubbed this group of world class wrestlers as the “Leaders of the New School” upon their historic meeting at the WWE Performance Center in the late summer of 2014.
There were more than enough reasons for the entire pro wrestling world to get excited about the addition of these stars. Primarily, it was that people thought, like CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, and Seth Rollins before them, they might be able to break boundaries and give the fans some world-class wrestling that the WWE had grown to neglect.
The wrestling community certainly wouldn’t be disappointed as Sami Zayn and Adrian Neville kicked down the door upon their arrival in NXT, followed quickly by Finn Balor and Kevin Owens. The guys that would have never before been given a chance in the WWE were quickly rising to the top and changing the face of the company.
It’s very possible years from now we’ll be looking back on this pivotal moment the way we look back on the ‘Four Horsemen,’ ‘DX,’ or the ‘Kliq.’
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