Triple H Wants NXT To Be The Next WCW: Should Vince McMahon Be Worried?
Triple H sat down with Michael Cole for a post-NXT TakeOver interview last Friday and detailed his future plans for NXT, which, until this point, been seen as the WWE developmental territory.
In the interview, The Game said that he felt NXT was currently at the same level of ECW back in the Attitude Era days, and that he would eventually like to see it become “the next WCW, of course hopefully without the eventual going out of business part.”
For any of you who were able to watch NXT TakeOver last Thursday, you know that at this point it has become its own brand with some of the most talented and death-defying wrestlers in the industry today.
Triple H admitted that he’d achieved his first goal with NXT — making it its brand — but now there was more work to do to take it beyond that level.
That leaves us with one question: Should Vince McMahon be worried?
Retirement has not come easy for Vince, and Triple H himself recently admitted to Chris Jericho on an episode of the Talk Is Jericho podcast that McMahon would probably never retire.
The Genetic Jackhammer is said to run every aspect of the WWE shows right up to showtime, and even makes changes on the fly, reportedly telling announcers what to say during the broadcast (and that’s in spite of having a large team of writers).
In other words, there is no succession plan for when Vince McMahon can no longer do the job. He won’t step away until they carry him out on a stretcher. And while he usually thrives when meeting competition head-to-head — see Attitude Era — he doesn’t particularly like being challenged.
It’s why he was happy to put WCW out of business, and why he won’t open up the WWE Network to show lower-tier indie wrestling shows. And yes, ROH and TNA are lower tier indie wrestling shows. They are NOT serious competition.
With Triple H wanting NXT to become the new WCW, there could be a subtle power play developing between the Chief Operating Officer and Vince McMahon. Here’s the full interview.
How will Vince respond? Will he allow the professional wrestling market to grow, or will he snuff out NXT if fans start to gravitate toward that instead of the product he packages on Raw and Smackdown?
NXT isn’t quite to that point yet, but will Vince McMahon’s ego ever allow it to be?
What do you think, readers? Could NXT become the next WCW, and if so, would Vince ever let Triple H hold on to creative control of the brand?
