Kendal Grey emerges as top NXT prospect in quarterly report

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ORLANDO, FLORIDA - JUNE 9: Kelani Jordan in action against Kendal Grey during NXT at the WWE Performance Center on June 9, 2026 in Orlando, Florida. (Photo by Matt Pendleton/WWE via Getty Images) | WWE via Getty Images Back in April, right after Stand & Deliver, I wrote up a scouting report discussing some main roster projections and comparisons for NXT prospects who were likely on the move to the main roster. Out of the 9 potential callups that I wrote about, 6 of them have since debuted on Raw and Smackdown, with Josh Briggs and former NXT Tag Team Champions Hank & Tank the only three that haven’t moved up. Once the dust settled after WrestleMania, I took a look at everybody that was left on the NXT roster and highlighted 9 prospects who could be primed for a promotion of their own within the next year. Now, I present to you a quarterly update on the status of the NXT pipeline. Every three months or so, I’ll take a look at which NXT stars have made the greatest strides and seen their stocks rise in the previous quarter, and others whose trajectory may be heading in the wrong direction. Also, if anybody is promoted to the main roster in between reports, I’ll examine their outlook for success on Raw or Smackdown with projections and Mel Kiper Jr.-like comparisons. All that said, let’s take stock of the NXT roster and look at 6 acts whose future may have changed the most in the first quarter of this new WWE year: Stock Up – Kendal Grey After an illustrious amateur wrestling career at Life University in Marietta, Georgia, Kendal Grey wrestled in her first professional wrestling match in March of 2024. In just a little over two years, Kendal has skyrocketed through the ranks of the WWE developmental system, with a stop on Evolve, where she held the Women’s Championship for 146 days and frequent apperances on NXT’s B-show, LvL Up. Despite having frequently competed on NXT prior, Grey would vacate the Evolve Women’s Title to become a full-time member of the NXT roster this March. Less than a month later, Kendal would already find herself competing in one of the featured contests at Stand & Deliver, a triple threat match for the NXT Women’s Championship that was ultimately won by Lola Vice. On June 9th, she defeated Kelani Jordan to become the sole #1 contender to Vice, and a one-on-one match between the two was signed for the Great American Bash this past weekend. Her emergence on the scene and rise through the ranks has caught the attention of many wrestling talking heads, including Dave Meltzer, who has said Kendal is “gonna be the best woman wrestler this country has ever produced”. After being crowned the NXT Women’s Champion on Sunday, it’s clear that WWE sees Kendal as a generational talent and is wasting no time treating her as such. In her first promo as champ on this week’s NXT, Kendal vowed to take the NXT women’s division to heights it’s never reached before. With a huge logjam in the women’s divisions of Raw and Smackdown, Kendal is primed to be a huge focus on NXT for the foreseeable future. Grey will definitely find her way to the main roster someday, but until then, she instantly gives wrestling fans a reason to watch NXT every Tuesday night. Stock Down – Thea Hail After wrestling in two matches on AEW Dark shortly after her 18th birthday, Thea Hail signed a developmental deal through the WWE’s NIL program in March of 2022. She would spend most of that year competing on LvL Up and appearing on NXT proper as part of the Chase University stable. She would win over many in the NXT universe with her scrappy, high-energy personality both in and out of the ring, even feuding with then-NXT Women’s Champion, Tiffany Stratton, in the summer of 2023. The following year, Hail would compete for the top prize in the NXT women’s division at Great American Bash for a second straight year, but came up short again, this time losing to Roxanne Perez. After the original Chase University stable was forced to disband in November of 2024, Hail went on an over 5-month hiatus before reemerging in April of 2025 and qualifying for a ladder match to crown a new North American Champion at Stand & Deliver. Hail would linger for most of 2025 before finally winning her first and, as of now, only championship when she defeated Blake Monroe for that same North American Title last December. That win came with controversy, as it was reported afterward that the finish to the match was botched and that Thea wasn’t actually booked to win. Thea’s only won one televised match since then. Still only 22 years old, Thea has plenty of time to find her footing, but it feels like the combination of Chase University closing up shop and her landing wrong on Blake Monroe has left Hail wallowing without much direction. Before competing in a Speed Tournament match two weeks ago, Hail debuted a new wrinkle to her gimmick, but she struggled to shotgun an energy drink as she headed to the ring. It’s obvious that the WWE sees something in her, and she’s still unbelievably young by wrestling standards, but it feels like Thea’s stock is quite a bit lower than it was at this time last year. Stock Up – Shiloh Hill Shiloh Hill (who has one of the coolest shoot names in the business) was signed to WWE through their NIL program over 4 years ago. After wrestling his first match in March of 2024, Shiloh became a regular on LvL Up before joining the cast of prospects on the first season of WWE: LFG, an unofficial descendant of Tough Enough. Shiloh would emerge as one of the standouts of that first season, benefiting from sitting under the Undertaker’s learning tree, and ended the season as the runner-up to the winner, Jasper Troy. Hill would return to UndertAAAker’s team on LFG for the second season, and this time, he was crowned the winner, edging out Harlem Lewis. Late last year, Shiloh would debut on NXT through a series of vignettes that explained his childhood and showcased some… shall we say, eccentricities? Hill would finally make his official NXT in-ring debut in December, defeating Lexis King (more on him in a minute!). Since then, Shiloh has been prominently featured on NXT weekly and has developed a budding friendship with fellow weirdo, Tatum Paxley. (For any WCW fans in the building, the two give off 21st-century Daffney and Crowbar vibes.) While Shiloh hasn’t gotten his first taste of gold yet, the NXT creative team must see something in him to have unleashed his unique and entertaining persona on the world to the extent that they have. Despite his maniacal laugh still needing some work, Shiloh has shown several different levels of his personality in just over 6 months on the NXT roster. In a men’s division severely lacking in star power right now, Shiloh could find himself with an opportunity for a main event-level run on Tuesday nights in the near future. Stock Down – Birth Right On paper, a group of 2nd-generation stars joining forces to combat an NXT locker room full of new-to-the-business converted college athletes seems promising. Legacy gave a template for how a faction like that could be run effectively almost 20 years ago, but it became clear from the very beginning that Birth Right was no Legacy. The biggest problems for the group have been a lack of identity and the lack of a true leader or star. Outside of talking about how success in this business is their birthright (hence, the name), we haven’t gotten much follow-up from anyone in the group about what they hope to accomplish. Lexis King is the Speed Champion and has started dubbing himself the “Fastest Man Alive.” Arianna Grace was the TNA Knockouts Champion for about 2 months and feuded with her father, TNA’s Director of Authority, Santino Marella. In addition, two members of the faction (likely Connors and Stacks) will be competing in a #1 contenders match for the NXT Tag Team Titles next week. They even brought in legendary grapplers and Birth Right dads, Fit Finlay and William Regal, to give their stamp of approval on the group, but all in all, this fivesome hasn’t progressed much up the ranks in NXT since joining forces earlier this year. They still don’t seem to have a clear purpose for being together beyond “Hey, our dads were in the biz!”, which makes it difficult for fans to invest in them one way or the other. I don’t think all hope is lost on Birth Right becoming a top-tier faction on Tuesday nights, but the clock is ticking. Stock Up – Kelani Jordan Former artistic gymnast Kelani Jordan burst onto the scene in NXT in the spring of 2023. By the end of the year, Kelani was showing off impressive athleticism and a unique moveset, which led her to a runner-up finish in the NXT Breakout Tournament and a spot in the Iron Survivor Challenge. Jordan would get her first real taste of success in June of 2024 when she became the inaugural Women’s North American Champion, defeating Jaida Parker and 4 women (Lash, Sol, Fallon, Michin) who have since moved up to the main roster. Kelani’s reign would last over 4 months. In the months that followed, the Standout would remain a focal point of a ridiculously deep women’s division and consistently find herself in the mix for all of NXT’s championships. After spending all of her almost three years in the company as a babyface, Kelani parlayed her heel turn last fall into winning the TNA Knockouts Championship. Her run with the title would last less than two months, but she would be prominently featured on both NXT and TNA through her entire title reign. Since losing the title right before Thanksgiving, Kelani has competed in the Iron Survivor Challenge, appeared in the 2026 Royal Rumble, and racked up a long list of victories in NXT over the likes of Jordynne Grace, Lola Vice, Jaida Parker, Wren Sinclair, Kendal Grey, and, most recently, Tatum Paxley. Kelani has continued to grow into her heel persona after seeming a little unsteady at first, and her physical tools have never been in question. She’s been a prominent character on NXT for the better part of the last year, even main eventing multiple weekly shows in the past few months. Her list of victories so far in 2026 shows that she may be primed for a shot at Kendal Grey and the NXT Women’s Title in the coming weeks, and I, for one, would love to see those two ladies mix it up again soon! Stock Down – Josh Briggs I think it’s time for me to finally cut bait on this 33-year-old big man. Josh Briggs first made his mark on the NXT brand in late 2021. He linked up with Brooks Jensen and Fallon Henley, and the unique trio became a staple on NXT 2.0. Briggs and Jensen would never win the NXT Tag Team Championships in their time together, but did have a three-month run with the NXT UK Tag Team Titles. In December of 2023, after over 2 years together, Briggs, Jensen, and Henley would decide to go their separate ways. After wallowing for the early part of 2024 as a singles competitor, Briggs went on an excursion to Pro Wrestling NOAH in Japan and had a solid showing in their N-1 Victory tournament. As a result of that excursion, Briggs would form a tag team with Yoshiki Inamura, and the duo would team together on NXT for about 7 months before a nasty split last August. Since beating Inamura in their blow-off match last summer, Briggs has only had 4 televised wins. In fact, Josh has wrestled only 4 matches this year, all of them losing efforts, with his most recent loss coming to Otis on an episode of Main Event at the end of April. Being featured on that show, at the time, gave me hope that a main roster call-up was in the cards. Now? I’m bracing for an announcement that Briggs has been ‘future endeavored’ any day now. So what do you think, Cagesiders? Are you as high on Kendal Grey as me and Dave Meltzer are? Do you think there is any hope left for Birth Right or Josh Briggs? Is there anybody else in NXT whose stock has seen a big shift in these last few months? Let us know in the comments below!