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NXT Superstars You Should Be Following On Social For Big Updates & The Best Smack Talk

From extending their trash talk to the Twitterverse to giving glimpses of their personal lives outside the ring — and everything in between — these Superstars are worth following.

By Chris Phelan
Wwe Cora Jade

Being an NXT Superstar comes with a lot of pressure and high expectations. When the bright lights are on in the Capitol Wrestling Center and the television cameras are rolling, every competitor needs to be “on” and ready to perform at the highest level possible.

When the lights go out and the cameras stop rolling, many NXT Superstars go about their lives, waiting until Tuesday to roll around so they can do it all over again.

But some Superstars never turn themselves off. They live the NXT Superstar lifestyle 24/7, and they use social media to their advantage.

Today, we’re going to highlight some of the best Superstars that stay “on” throughout the week — not just on Tuesday nights.

Here are the absolute best NXT Superstars who are simply a joy to follow on Twitter.

Mandy Rose (@WWE_MandyRose)

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the NXT Women’s Champion headlines this particular list. After all, she has one of the most popular Instagram accounts in all of WWE and common sense says that her Twitter account would also be worth following.

It’s true.

When she’s not posting drop-dead gorgeous photos of herself on the beach or posing with her women’s title, she’s actually taking time to engage with the WWE Universe, often retweeting or commenting on other people’s posts.

Of course, she’s one of the first Superstars to cry foul whenever she feels like she isn’t the center of attention, which is what happened this week when it seemed like all of the attention was going to Zoey Stark:

Clearly Mandy Rose wants to be the center of attention, and while she’s waiting for her shot at regaining that spotlight at Heatwave next week, she’s going to say whatever is needed to be said on Twitter in the meantime.

If there were any reason to doubt the success of Mandy’s run in NXT, one only has to look at her Twitter feed for the reasons why: She builds herself up, she calls people out, and she uses any sort of anti-Mandy sentiment she finds as motivation to make herself even better, although she can’t help but let her “toxic” side reveal itself even as she’s tweeting from behind a phone screen.

Carmelo Hayes (@Carmelo_WWE)

The reigning NXT North American Champion makes this list due to the fact that Hayes is engaged in every aspect of WWE. Seriously, check out his timeline — at any point he could be doing any of the following:

-       Directly responding to tweets from fans

-       Talking trash about his upcoming opponent (and then subsequently trash talking the opponent he just defeated!)

-       Retweeting gym photos of himself that show that he’s truly in the upper echelon of NXT fitness

-       Commenting on the latest happenings on Monday Night Raw

-       Keeping track of his successful title defenses (he’s looking for number ten against Giovanni Vinci next week at Heatwave)

-       Just generally being an extremely interesting and engaging NXT Superstar to follow on Twitter!

Most importantly, Carmelo Hayes stays true to who he is inside the ring and outside the ring, and that’s an absolute baller who has arguably the greatest skillset in NXT:

That’s just some quality, on-point smack talk from the North American champion.

Cora Jade (@CoraJadeWWE)

As one of the youngest, fastest-rising Superstars of NXT, Cora Jade’s Twitter account is another must-follow. And maybe we can chalk it up to her age and not knowing any better — she’s 21 years old — but it seems that her account exists primarily to stir the pot.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that! And who isn’t a fan of a well-timed gif aimed to shut somebody down quickly?

Take this particularly savage response to a tweet from Zoey Stark following Cora tossing the NXT Tag Team Championship into the trash last month:

Yeah, Cora was playing with fire with that response, and in the end, all the Mariah gifs in the world couldn’t give Cora the win when she and Zoey Stark met in the ring this past week on NXT 2.0.

The rest of her Twitter feed is filled with interesting posts, whether Cora Jade is retweeting amazing fan art, admiring the work of NXT alum who’ve “graduated” to Monday Night Raw, and posting impressive photos of herself in her ring gear — complete with a cocky caption or two.

We wouldn’t expect anything less from the Generation of Jade.

Joe Gacy (@JoeGacy)

We’ll be honest.

Joe Gacy is truly creeping us out at all times. NXT is a decidedly more unsettling place with him around.

But feelings about this unique NXT Superstar aside, we have to give credit where credit is due: His Twitter is pretty entertaining.

He’s extremely active on Twitter, engaging with members of the WWE Universe at an impressive rate. If you’re reading this and you have fan art that you want to tag Joe Gacy in, it’s almost a certainty that he’ll retweet and respond to it. That’s actually a pretty cool thing for such a creepy dude to do.

Throughout the month of August, he’s also been partaking in a viral Twitter “30 Day Video Game Challenge” which serves as a look at the person who he is outside the ring. He’s an accomplished gamer, which makes his connection to his followers a little more understandable; he’s got some good taste in games, we have to admit.

Of course, he also indulges in a fair amount of smack talk against his opponents in NXT, and often retweets photos of his matches. He’s no slouch inside the ring, after all.

But in the end, although his account is definitely worth a follow, we can’t get images like this out of our minds:

Yeah, nothing creepy about that at all!

Zoey Stark (@ZoeyStarkWWE)

We don’t blame Zoey Stark for utilizing Twitter endlessly over the last week or so, because she’s riding a wave of momentum that no NXT Superstar has had in a very long time — and it’s all thanks to her unbelievable finishing move.

(Has Zoey officially named her finisher “Vertigo To Sleep” yet? Because we’d like full credit for it, please and thank you.)

It’s a move that has gotten the attention of the entire WWE Universe for one good reason: It’s absolutely capable of knocking Mandy Rose out for the three-count at Heatwave and the world seeing a new NXT Women’s Champion be crowned.

Zoey knows this (we bet Mandy knows this too) and that’s why she’s taking every opportunity she can get to talk a big-time game ahead of their epic match on Tuesday:

Talk about a confident challenger. We could be witnessing the first match in history where both champion and challenger are 100 percent convinced they are going to walk out of their matchup as the victor.

When she’s not engaging in smack talk with her opponents, her Twitter timeline is filled with personal updates from the road and occasional running commentary during big WWE events.

Oh, and let’s not forget some choice photos of her adorable cat Sly – who might be in the running for cutest pet in all of NXT.