Triple H On Criticism Of NXT Talent Being ‘Misused’ On Raw And Smackdown, Talent Staying in NXT

During his media call to promote NXT today, Triple H addressed criticism of talent being moved off NXT and being “misused” on other brands. The Game was asked about why there haven’t been as many breakout stars that moved from NXT to Raw or Smackdown like Kevin Owens or Drew McIntyre have been and talked about the many reasons it might not work out. You can see some highlights below:

On less people moving from NXT to have successful runs on the other brands: “Yeah, so one was of looking at it is ‘misused.’ Another way of looking at it is, ‘Things don’t always pan out.’ Look, there are players who play in the NFL, there are players that play in college football and people cannot wait for them to get to the NFL. They get to the NFL, and it doesn’t work. It doesn’t pan out. And you could say ‘Well, the team misused them, or mismanaged them, or the coach of the team they played for didn’t put them in the right roles or do whatever,’ but there can be a million reasons, you know? It can also be that sometimes talent don’t fit the particular place, or talent got to a particular place and then thought ‘Ah, I made it,’ and that was the end of their growth curve. Sometimes it just doesn’t work. There’s a lot of factors.”

On talent staying on the brand: “As NXT has grown, one of the things that has changed about it is, there is a question there when you say, ‘So what is NXT? Is it strictly a developmental, where you’re looking for everybody there to eventually move on? Or is it its own brand?’ Is it its own organization, its own grouping?

“It’ll be an interesting place of, sort of the criticisms — you know, a year or two in, three years in, four years in, that was a heavy knock on NXT … for me doing the interviews at that time, it was always said, ‘How can I get into this brand? Whenever I get excited about a talent, they move on?’ It kills me for the brand and I don’t like it,’ and it was a heavy duty criticism. That was for the first three, four years, and then it morphed into a different place where people got accustomed to that and it switched. The brand changed again, and it changed into a place where yeah, there are going to be some talent that will be in a position for a long time. They might not fit different places. They might not want to go different places. There are some talent that don’t want to leave and expand beyond, they don’t want to. Maybe the schedule doesn’t work for the physically, whatever it is. So there’s a lot of options there.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit WWE with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.