2. Samoa Joe
On the same night that the now current NXT Champion Samoa Joe made his shocking debut, Hideo Itami was attacked and injured in the parking lot of Full Sail University earlier in the day. With Samoa Joe interfering at the end of the show and in the process cementing himself as a top superstar in NXT, and making it clear Joe wanted a shot at the NXT Championship. Samoa Joe taking out Itami could be viewed as a thinning of the herd so to speak, taking out the strong competition and getting Joe one step closer to becoming the NXT Champion.
Samoa Joe being the storyline attacker of Hideo seems like a good fit, especially since Joe is the current NXT Champion. However it was six months before Joe would get a shot at the NXT Title and nearly a year after his debut that Joe would win the NXT Title, if Joe had won the title a little earlier in his NXT career then him being the attacker could have been a possibility but now, not so much.