8 Ways Triple H’s WWE Is JUST LIKE Vince McMahon’s
5. NXT > WWE Pipeline Is Still Broken
This is the most inexplicable similarity between Triple H’s WWE and Vince McMahon’s WWE.
The failure of the original NXT > main roster pipeline was thoroughly expected. Triple H recognised that the old WWE audience was split into two tribes - John Cena’s fans, and the millennial hardcores who wanted WWE to adopt a more wrestling-forward approach - and geared his NXT brand towards the latter.
It might not be too cynical to state that Triple H was more interested in getting high off critical acclaim than building new stars that Vince would realistically promote. Vince was never going to see anything in Johnny Gargano, was he?
Bizarrely, the system was disjointed by design. NXT was meant to stand alone as the cult wrestling brand and supply the main roster with talent simultaneously. It did not work. It was impossible for it to work.
How to explain the chasm between Triple H and Shawn Michaels’ philosophies?
They’re meant to be close friends. In 1997, they shared the same wrestling brain, constantly urging Vince McMahon to embark on a new, edgier direction. Neither Triple H nor Shawn are volatile, brain-rotted old men with one fixed way of doing things. And yet, the same old problems persist.
Shawn’s NXT is a dumb, heightened show that has as much in common with a teen drama, with its wacky personal growth arcs, as it does with the main roster. Michaels is teaching these wrestlers to be actors - bad actors - who exclusively wrestle rushed, sub-AEW-style matches. These skits get them out of their shell. That’s one way to look at it. But they look lost in a big arena doing actual wrestling matches, so what’s the point?
Triple H presents NXT acts in almost the exact same way Vince did. He debuts them cold, mostly in undercard positions, with no great fanfare, simply expecting the fans to know who they are or care about them. Even if these bad acting lessons make a certain weird sense - Triple H does like his “cinema” - Triple H doesn’t seem to trust Shawn’s guys at all, with a few rule-proving exceptions. Oba Femi and Tiffany Stratton have done well. Bron Breakker gets hyped, but how close is he to headlining WrestleMania?
And after four long years, who else is there?