NXT is the development territory of WWE which had been extremely popular among the fans. It had been a popular brand like Smackdown and RAW over the years. For more than a decade it had been a fan favourite brand but 2021 it was repackaged as NXT 2.0 and it was in existence for a year. It did not make much difference but it mostly focused on creating new stars rather than promoting indie wrestlers.
WWE Smackdown star Cameron Grimes who had been an active wrestler during the short tenure of the NXT 2.0 recently talked about this time period of the brand and addressed it as “very weird transition period”. Speaking on the latest episode of the Out of Character with Ryan Satin podcast, he said;
Behind the Scenes: WWE Smackdown Star Shares Insights On The Challenging ‘Weird Transition Period’ Of NXT 2.0
“Yeah, for sure. I don’t think I can get any bigger. Of course, you know, I would have loved to have wrestled for the NXT Championship and maybe have held that. But they brought an entire championship back, the Million Dollar Championship belt out of [an] 11-year, 12-year absence. They brought a complete championship back just for me ultimately. So yeah, that’s going to be a highlight, not even in just NXT, but my entire career.”
“Yeah, that was, you know, very interesting to be honest. I feel like if you were a fan of the product at the time, I feel like I was gearing up like you said. The character kind of started as a very outlandish, over the top character, but then I started kind of gearing into a more serious and more real-life side of who I am. And then right at that time is when the NXT 2.0 thing started.
Cameron Grimes Discusses The NXT 2.0 Era
“So I feel like a lot of the time and the emphasis was put on a lot of the newer, up-and-coming people that we were trying to establish, all the new stars. Because a lot of our talent had moved, and now there was a lot of spots that needed to be filled. So you have to establish these new characters.
“You have to give these people new time. So, you know, it was a very weird transition period, but ultimately that’s where I always wanted to be. I always wanted to be in WWE. So, it didn’t matter if it was 1, 2, 3, I was there and I was going to do my job to the best of my ability.”
After Triple H became in charge of WWE Creatives, he stopped NXT 2.0 and he tried to reintroduce the previous glory days of the NXT but somehow the spark of the black and gold days of the NXT is totally missing from today’s NXT. We hope it gets better in the future.
H/T – eWrestlingNews.com