Triple H defends company pivot to NXT 2.0

WWE Hall of Famer defends the WWE’s strategy to pivot to NXT 2.0. In an interview with The Athletic, Triple H discussed the move in detail, revealing that it was in the plans for the brand all along.

“There was this point where it (NXT) was on the WWE Network, had this cult following, and we needed to get on television,“ Triple H said. “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.”

“People like Bron Breakker, he’s been training for a year,” Triple H said. “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,” Triple H said. “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.”

The NXT brand relaunched as NXT 2.0 in September of 2021. That same month, Triple H suffered a severe cardiac event that sidelined him from the company and led to his in-ring retirement.

CATCH-UP: WWE RAW PREVIEW 4/18: Two championship matches, Owens lie detector with Ezekiel, more