Cultaholic.com 2021 Awards: Vote For Your News Story Of The Year

WWE Changes The NXT Guard

This one was a pretty big story at the time, but has potential to be an even bigger story in the weeks, months and years to come, depending on how it all shakes out.

After getting trounced in the so-called ‘Wednesday Night Wars’, it was decided that NXT, WWE’s third brand, would undergo significant alterations upon evaluation. The black and gold was gone, bright lights and neon paint splashes were in.

The old guard, like Johnny Gargano, Adam Cole and Kyle O’Reilly would depart, replaced by a new generation headed by Bron Breakker, Von Wagner and Mandy Rose.

Behind the scenes, it was reported that Kevin Dunn, Bruce Prichard, Nick Khan and Vince McMahon himself spearheaded the changes, with Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque’s influence clearly diminishing (though he did suffer a cardiac event on September 8 and has been recuperating since).

The change to NXT 2.0 will greatly impact the future of WWE’s business, as they now plan on grooming ‘future WrestleMania main eventers’, rather than attracting a hardcore audience which has mostly migrated to AEW. WWE will hope the new direction pays off.

Nominated by: Lewis Howse - Features & Script Writer