Last week’s November 2 episode of WWE Raw saw Cruz Montana make the jump from NXT to the main roster when he debuted as the newest member of the 946.

Montana would then go on to settle his business with Dion Lennox two days later on NXT, but now it seems as if his time on the brand is over, less than four months after he arrived.

The former TNA World Champion is a big miss for the NXT roster, as he appeared to be a strong candidate to potentially dethrone Grayson Waller for the NXT Championship in the near future.

With his future now lying on Raw instead, NXT General Manager Robert Stone may once again have to look to Raw for a new addition to his roster.

Here are three WWE Raw stars that could potentially replace Cruz Montana on NXT:

Alpha Academy

There probably aren’t two stars on the Raw roster that need a change of scenery more than Otis and Akira Tozawa right now.

The pair’s feud with The Vision – which stretched throughout the summer and early fall – was dropped out of nowhere, before the pair could even get a shot at Bron Breakker and Austin Theory’s World Tag Team Championships. And now, with Breakker and Theory losing those titles to Penta and Je’Von Evans at WWE Crown Jewel, that door is officially closed.

NXT would almost certainly find a better use for Alpha Academy than Raw is right now – whether that’s bringing them into the tag division, or booking Otis as one of Grayson Waller’s next challengers for the NXT Championship.

Rusev

Rusev hasn’t been seen on WWE Raw since July, with “The Bulgarian Brute” dealing with an injury and an illness that kept him sidelined for several months.

Thankfully, those issues have cleared up and he returned to in-ring action during WWE’s tour of Hawaii in October. That hasn’t, as of yet, led to a WWE TV return as well however, as WWE are seemingly waiting for the right creative plans to reintroduce him into the fold.

While Ethan Page’s Intercontinental Title win could be the catalyst for that happening, WWE could also send Rusev back down to where it all began for him over a decade ago: NXT. Having never previously won a championship on the brand during his first run, Rusev could set his sights on either Jackson Drake’s North American Title or Grayson Waller’s NXT Championship.

Big Cass

It has now been three months since Big Cass made his return to WWE, and the jury is still out whether the former AEW star is going to find success as a singles star.

Reactions to him have been pretty tepid and his booking certainly hasn’t helped him come off as the monster he’s supposed to be.

What also hasn’t helped Cass was the expectation that his former tag team partner Enzo Amore would be following him back to WWE, something that is now happening according to recent reports.

While an Enzo and Cass reunion on WWE Raw feels like a no brainer, the company’s plans are reportedly to send Enzo to NXT, rather than the main roster. While this would suggest that Cass will be remaining where he is, perhaps that means we could see Cass also get moved to NXT as well?

Again, that would be a head-scratching decision it would still be an improvement than what Cass has been doing on his own.