Triple H on AEW: “They Beat Our Developmental System? Good For Them”
Triple H has shared his thoughts on the “competition” between WWE and All Elite Wrestling.
Wrestling fans have been at odds for several years on whether WWE views AEW as competitors. WWE had NXT go up against AEW on Wednesday since the debut of AEW Dynamite on Oct. 2, 2019. NXT and AEW would go head to head for over a year, with AEW having the superior viewership ratings until WWE announced on Mar. 30, 2021, that NXT would move to Tuesday.
While WWE spent over a year competing for ratings with AEW, the company has consistently downplayed talks of AEW as rivals. Triple H, in the past, has denigrated AEW and has gone as far as calling them a “pissant company.”
In an interview with BT Sport’s Ariel Helwani, Triple H was asked if it was true that NXT got rebranded to NXT 2.0 because they couldn’t beat AEW in the ratings. The WWE executive Vice President of Talent Relations denied the rumor and again downplayed talks of WWE viewing AEW as a competition.
“People put so much pressure on this, all these competitive wars, it never was that. Look, first of all, they beat our developmental system. Good for them, right?”
He continued, “It was never that. There was never even a pressure of like you have to beat that like it was never that. It was put on the best product we could.”
Many wrestling fans felt that NXT’s shift to NXT 2.0 resulted from not being able to compete with AEW Dynamite’s success. One reason could be that the change happened soon after moving the brand to Tuesday.
However, Triple H expressed that it was a necessary change because they missed the ability to use a developmental system to make new stars.
“It shifted over time during the pandemic, all of that shifted over time and the opportunity for us to change it back to what it truly was, right when you look at a lot of the stars that have come through that system that had either started from zero or very little exposure anywhere and then became massive stars with us, kind of so many people and we lost the ability to take those people and groom them from the ground up. We really had, and it’s the biggest change that’s out there,” said Triple H.
He also shared that he is proud of Shawn Michaels and the NXT 2.0 staff for handling the developmental brand. He added that the decision to rebrand NXT UK to NXT Europe is similar to NXT 2.0 situation and wants to expand the developmental system to different parts of the world like India or South Africa.
Wrestling fans continue to be split on whether they should be a fan of WWE or AEW. However, Triple H is of the mindset that the WWE is operating on what is best for them and thinking about AEW.
He also has a big ambition to focus on making developmental territories worldwide to discover new stars.
What AEW President Tony Khan thinks about Triple H’s comments is unclear. Although, we may hear his thoughts at the All Out post-Press Conference this Sunday.
