WWE President Nick Khan: "We are doing a complete revamp on NXT"

Originally published at WWE President Nick Khan: "We are doing a complete revamp on NXT"

WWE president and chief revenue officer Nick Khan spoke with BT Sport’s Ariel Helwani and addressed the upcoming changes to the NXT brand.

We are doing a complete revamp on NXT, led by Triple H/Paul Levesque, who is really one of the architects of the original NXT.

We want our system to be an easy system where people who want to be superstars, they know how to get to us, and we can get to them.

In terms of an NXT rebrand, look for it in the next couple of weeks. It’s going to have a whole new look. It’s going to have a whole new feel, and we believe because a lot of the ‘Indie wrestlers’ if you will, have come through our system and are in our system with SmackDown and Raw now, we don’t want to just keep doing that same thing, we want to look elsewhere for great young talent.

Khan added the look and production of the show would be changing along with “everything”.

Khan emphasized having a system in place where they can recruit high-level athletes and indicated it would be more streamlined rather than limiting their recruitment to the independent wrestling level.

It will be a stark contrast given that NXT, and the main roster itself, has been fueled by the talent that gained traction working throughout the independents and coming in at a higher level than those starting from the ground up in the system.

Earlier this week, WWE held a two-day tryout in Las Vegas and signed over a dozen talents with the tryouts overseen by Paul Levesque.

The full interview with Nick Khan is available through BT Sport:

 

It was only a matter of time before this happened, nothing made sense about NXT and the way it ran outside of hoarding talent and trying to prevent growth from other promotions.

It’s an indictment of a complete failure by HHH. He had every advantage and a head start over AEW and still got his ass handed to him every Wednesday.

Nick Khan has now leapfrogged over HHH in the WWE power structure and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

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It is an indictment of HHH as it concerns the WWE system. I think that if he were allowed to run a main show and feed the same guys in he would have done fine. His vision doesn’t match Vince’s

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Why would a wrestling company hire wrestlers afterall?!

Ex football players and swimsuit models need only apply

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Well if tonight’s the swan song I hope it’s a banger! Fun while it lasted. This was inevitable since 2019 and the USA deal. As with most things WWE, nothing can ever be over because the fans want it. It’s gotta be over because it’s theirs and they will tinker and break anything and anyone who is over on their own, even if it’s the COOs pet project that reaches heights not seen by any non WWE branded show in decades (before All In). NXT as a brand sold out Brooklyn.

Seeing NXT Brooklyn Takeovers are always going to be a highlight of my wrestling fandom.

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really ? And you’re doing the same matches every week

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I have not watched wwe for years and only get the news from Post Wrestling but from all I’ve read especially lately I do not believe they are the number one company in the world. Not with the leader they have and the decisions they keep making.

I have been a wrestling fan since 1990 and it would take alot of convincing for you to make me believe AEW didn’t knock them down on day one.

The revamp wwe needs is in the office/creative but we all know that won’t happen

Depends on how you are defining #1. By every measurable WWE is still number 1 (ratings, average attendance, social media engagement, revenue etc) and it isn’t all that close. Now most popular doesn’t necessarily make it the best quality product, but it has not yet been dethroned as #1 company In the world.

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Exactly this. NXT was great, anyone that says that Takeovers (for the most part) were not at worst good, at best great is full of it. The issue was the disconnect between Hunter & Vince. You can tell it was Hunters baby right up until it was asked to go head to head with AEW, at that point something changed and IMO that change was Vince and co. clearly beginning to have some say regarding the on screen product. Prior to that, it was a damn hot product.

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Haha, I know right. Because everyone bitched about how stale NXT was unlike that fresh innovating and groundbreaking main roster.

Well that’s the system he worked in. He has a performance center, unlimited money, freedom to do whatever and a head start and still got beat by AEW. His vision didn’t work, bottom line

The TV deal with USA was the nail in the coffin. More eyes and more pressure on a product that only ever should have been a one-hour show.

HHH fell in love with internet praise instead of developing wrestlers with the intent for main roster stardom. It was all well and good when there was no competition but why would any young talent right now choose NXT over AEW?

AEW offers way more creative freedom, opportunities outside wrestling and is growing.

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I disagree. His vision was hampered by being part of WWE. As to why choose NXT for young talent I think it depends on who you are. A young Indy star I think right now AEW is better for many. But they cannot take everyone either. However if you are an athlete from outside wrestling NXT might be the better choice.

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i.e: We are (NTX) developmental. Raw & SmackDown is the only top priority and if you think going back to NXT because we are doing absolutely nothing for you, then we don’t want you.

The Gargano’s and Ciampa;s (The old guard) of NXT might as well leave, because their new NXT don’t have any need for them.

His vision basically was sign anyone who might be decent or provide value to another company. He could pick and choose anyone he wanted. Any moron could have achieved what he achieved.

Compare all the advantages HHH had to a developmental territory like OVW and you’ll realize the guy didn’t accomplish very much despite every benefit available. There have been no Cena, Ortons, Batista or Brocks recruited, he only wanted guys getting buzz online

He presented it well with good stories. It isn’t his fault WWE largely decided to stop creating stars on the main roster. His major problem is trying to run a style that WWE main roster wasn’t going to use.

As for any moron could achieve what he achieved, apparently not because Vince couldn’t.

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His job was to develop stars for Raw and Smackdown, he didn’t really do a lot of that - especially on the men’s side.

He should have been hiring, pushing and using guys with that potential. Not guys like Gargano who can have 45 minute “dream” matches. What was the point in a developmental territory doing shit like that?

As for the stories, it was easy to do that with a one-hour show. When NXT became a two-hour show it fell off a cliff. Tony Khan, who has no developmental center or years of experience, has done a far better job booking a two hour show.

A lot of the stories were just matching up two guys who were over on the indies - again something anyone could have done.

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Let’s not get our shovels and pitchforks ready just yet. Nxt has contributed to the main roster greatly. But, the main roster cannot get anyone over. That isn’t HHH’s fault. Look at Owen’s, or Zayn, or Nakamura, or Otis…there’s are countless guys that have gone through Nxt. The problem is 50/50 booking, shitty angles, and bad writing. You could hand those scripted promos to a Shakespearean actor, and it would still sound ridiculous. That isn’t on developmental, that’s the fault of one guy…

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Owens, Zayn and Nakamura are all guys who came to NXT with years of past experience. There was no need for them to waste time in developmental, they were main roster ready when they were signed

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