WWE NXT 2.0 Reboot Was Coming Whether Triple H Was There Or Not

WWE rebooted the NXT brand last year, which left a bad taste in the mouths of many loyal viewers of the developmental show. Once a landing ground for the top independent talent in the United States, the show became a petri dish for new characters, and experimental angles, and ultimately looked very little like its previous incarnation. Many fans blamed Triple H being away from WWE for the dramatic overhaul.

That was not the case at all. With the move from streaming to television, WWE wanted to create a show where fans could watch raw talent develop into polished WWE superstars. The pandemic put it off for a while, but ultimately, the reboot was the plan all along.

Triple H revealed this in a recent interview with The Athletic. The Game noted that his absence due to health issues was coincidental. NXT 2.0 was coming regardless.

“There was this point where it was on the (WWE) Network, had this cult following, and we needed to get on television. How do we do that? We need more experience, need to professionalize this a little bit to make the product to where fans want to see that. We got them to that place. The pandemic (messed) it up a little bit because it was right when we went on TV and we had to shift our focus, doing it in front of no people. It completely altered what we were doing. We couldn’t recruit or train talent for almost two years. … But the show stayed. Then we said, OK, let’s reboot it and go back to what we originally were. Some of these people won’t be ready for television, but we’re gonna put them on television, and we believe the audience is invested enough that the numbers might come down, but a core group of them will stay, and now you’re creating fresh stars all the time. That’s where we are now. The numbers have stabilized.

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People like Bron Breakker, he’s been training for a year. Half the women, they’ve been here a year maybe. There’s a lot that’s just so fresh and new. People used to say the constant churn of NXT was a negative. The churn is what’s great about it. The people here now, hopefully a year and a half from now, none of them are even in NXT anymore, and the ones that make it will be on to “Raw” and “SmackDown. That’s the magic. It truly is the developmental league, the college football, Triple-A baseball. Yeah, they’re not all quite ready to be in that major-league role yet, but you’re discovering them before they become household names.

We were talking about this shift anyway. That’s where we were headed. It happened at a period of time where I had to leave for a bit. Luckily, Shawn (Michaels) had been doing it with me all that time, so it was a seamless thing. I stepped out, did what I needed to do, but that team has killed it. They’ve really created a show where you can really say that’s the next generation of stars.”

NXT 2.0 was going to happen no matter what. WWE wanted the brand to be a place to develop raw talent. While some of the wrestlers on the colorful brand are green, Triple H thinks fans will be captivated by watching the process play out.

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