More Details on WWE Plans for Revamped NXT Brand
More details have emerged on the recent series of cuts to NXT and the reported ‘revamp’ of the black and gold brand.
On Saturday’s edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer noted that NXT leaders Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque and Shawn Michales had nothing to do with the talent cuts and that these decisions were instead made by Vince McMahon, John Laurinaitis and Bruce Prichard.
Meltzer also stated that the mentality of NXT is likely to shift in the coming weeks, harking back to the previous mindset of developmental which was to find “younger, bigger guys that could someday main event WrestleMania”:
“And it’s back to when they first started developmental, because, I know this from Jim Ross, who was a very key part of this, the original idea of NXT was to be developmental, and to get guys with the mentality of, we’re trying to find people who can main event WrestleMania – that’s always what they’d say. And their feeling is that even though Bryan Danielson main evented at WrestleMania, and CM Punk never did but could have, what that means is they want more Roman Reigns-looking guys. And the basic feeling is that they lost the war (with AEW) and now it’s time to get it back to, you know, it’s like, this is the aftermath, and this is the new direction, and the new direction is younger guys and bigger guys.”
To summarise, Meltzer went on to report:
The wording is “no more midgets, no one starting in their 30s and people who can be box office attractions and main characters”.
Where this leaves the current NXT roster, many of whom would not meet this profile, remains to be seen, though a recent report from Fightful suggested that releases were set to become a “regular occurrence”.