WWE Looking To Take NXT Brand Back On The Road

NXT 2.0 has been a mixed bag since it’s relaunch in September. Viewership was down and the people who were watching weren’t even close to the demographic WWE was targeting. The brand found some success with Halloween Havoc, but with only two hours a week, a focus on building a very young roster, and no house shows, the quality of some of the in-ring work has been suspect.

Those new talents may be on their way to getting some extra work in the squared circle. In this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer outlined potential plans for NXT 2.0 to start a touring live events schedule.

“WWE is looking for a Senior Production Assistant for social media for the NXT brand and in the job description it includes live events, which people are taking as a sign of going back to live events for the brand. At one point the idea was the summer. Right now the brand appears to be in a position where I don’t know how well it would draw for a national road schedule. There would be some interest because a lot of live wrestling is doing well but I don’t think interest would be close to what it was. I think the approach should be to open up Florida and get the new crew ready for arena events there and when the feeling is they’ve had enough TV to draw, go from there. But they do need to get this new crew in front of regular fans learning to work before a different type of fan than the basically invited regulars on Tuesday night.”

Even WWE-signed talent like Matt Riddle have been critical of the unsafe environment NXT wrestlers are facing. In the past month, Jacy Jayne nearly injured herself on a dive, Io Shirai took a heinous looking ladder bump, and two of the lumberjacks in that match at Halloween Havoc failed to catch wrestlers attempting a dive.

The ability for the more inexperienced wrestlers in NXT to work in front of diverse fans instead of the home-base at the CWC would benefit everybody. In the previous incarnation of NXT, there was a “Florida Loop (or Coconut Loop)” NXT wrestlers would work until they were ready for television.

Reports of NXT returning to these Florida live shows broke over the summer. WWE is now doing U.S. and international touring similar to before the pandemic, but NXT 2.0 hasn’t been a part of it. WWE is sending some NXT talent to the U.K. for an upcoming main roster live event tour.

Would you pay for a ticket to an NXT 2.0 live event? Let us know in the comments!