WWE SmackDown star and former three times WWE Intercontinental Champion Sami Zayn who is also a former WWE NXT champion recently remembered the rebranding of NXT which is the development Territory of WWE and discussed about it.
NXT had been the Development Territory of WWE for over a decade. It had been very successful since the very first day of it. Previously WWE had other development territories like the Ohio Valley Wrestling and the Florida Championship Wrestling. But none of them had been televised worldwide like the NXT.
Sami Zayn Discusses The Rebranding Of NXT
It had produced some of the biggest stars of WWE today such as Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns. It had been hugely popular as well among the hardcore professional wrestling fans. But after the arrival of the new professional wrestling promotion AEW it was struggling to gain high ratings.
So WWE decided to rebrand it and rename it as NXT 2.0. The structure had been changed from the previous style of the NXT. Previously NXT was focusing on bringing in independent stars. But after it became NXT 2.0, it started to focus on building their own stars. And it is going quite well currently.
Sami Zayn who is also a former WWE NXT champion recently spoke to WWE After The Bell with Corey Graves where he remembered the rebranding of NXT which is the development Territory of WWE and discussed about it. He said;
“I happened to stumble upon a video or two, one of them was actually today, of myself in NXT very early. I was doing the same thing that these guys in NXT 2.0 we’re doing in the beginning, which is just trying to find yourself, especially for me, because I had come from a different background. I was a different character and all this stuff. So I was trying to find my voice, I was trying to find my facial expressions, all that stuff. I was trying to find myself.”
“I kind of don’t remember that part of NXT so much, because I tend to remember the later half once that character got a bit more developed. Then we were telling good stories, having good matches, and building NXT to becoming what people now know about NXT. But there was that first little year where I’m there and I’m still kind of finding my footing.”
“Now when I see these guys and girls in NXT 2.0, and I just saw this video today, so today’s when I made the connection of like, ‘Oh, this is exactly where these guys and girls are now.’ Sometimes there might be a tendency to watch something, and in NXT it’s different because you’re forgiving it because you know they’re developing themselves.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription