It is past time for another Worlds Collide event with NXT 2.0 and NXT UK going to battle. Last night’s Heatwave and the current state of NXT UK as a whole proved to me that not only should this event is the logical next step, it might also be the end of NXT UK as a whole.
What is Going on Right Now?
We’ve seen some crossover between NXT UK and NXT (as well as the main roster’s Raw and SmackDown) over the years, but not a ton. Yes, the current intercontinental champion Gunther got his start in NXT UK, and folks like Rhea Ripley, Butch and Doudrop made their names there, but for the brand existing since January 2017, the guest appearances and roster trades were relatively few and far between.
However, lately, that has amped up considerably.
Out of nowhere a few months back, NXT Superstars popped up on NXT UK as part of a random vacation of sorts. We saw Ivy Nile fight Meiko Satomura for the NXT UK Women’s Championship, Damon Kemp and Von Wagner picking fights with people and so on. Chase University even had a field trip.
Meanwhile, the number of NXT UK talent making the move to Florida to be part of NXT proper has increased more than ever, too. Grizzled Young Veterans are now The Dyad of Schism and barely recognizable as their former selves, even being renamed Rip Fowler and Jagger Reid. Nathan Frazer, A-Kid (now Axiom), Pretty Deadly (also renamed Elton Prince and Kit Wilson), JD McDonagh (formerly Jordan Devlin) and Alba Fyre (formerly Kay Lee Ray) have made NXT their homes, moving on from the UK.
Last night at Heatwave, Gallus and Blair Davenport also made the jump. We don’t know how long they will be part of the 2.0 brand, but considering they are gunning for gold, that should dictate they are hoping to stay quite a while, if not indefinitely.
So what gives? Why has there been so much crossover? Is it just to keep things fresh and play around with new toys? Could it be a strategy to get NXT fans to watch NXT UK and vice versa?
I can’t help but to think it is a slow process toward the dissolution of NXT UK as a whole, actually.
The Status of NXT UK
Dave Meltzer recently spoke about uneasiness among the NXT UK roster about the brand’s future. This is primarily because the next set of tapings was cancelled and nothing has been clarified about when or where more episodes will be filmed.
BT Sport Studios has been the home of NXT UK since its return from the pandemic, but that space had to be used for soccer coverage. WWE could tape some episodes at the Capitol Wrestling Center and allow talent to work at the WWE Performance Center, but the sheer lack of that announcement is interesting.
The clock is ticking. We’re running out of pre-taped material to air, especially with the brand in shambles.
During the last set of tapings, Ilja Dragunov was forced to relinquish the NXT UK Championship due to injury. A tournament happened and Tyler Bate won the vacated title. That match hasn’t aired yet, but WWE didn’t bother to hide from spoilers, showing him with the title on Heatwave.
The NXT UK tag team titles are on NXT guys, Josh Briggs and Brooks Jensen, after Oliver Carter and Ashton Smith had to vacate from Smith’s injury. The NXT UK Heritage Cup went from Noam Dar to Mark Coffey back to Noam Dar.
The NXT UK Women’s Championship likely would have gone to Blair Davenport a few months back, but she was injured in a match against Meiko Satomura. It seemed WWE just kept the title on Satomura with no sound plans, feeding her random opponents, while waiting for Davenport to recover. Now that that’s an option to put the belt on her, they’ve taken a detour with some others vying for the belt, while Davenport says she’s going for Mandy Rose’s title.
Less and less people on the NXT UK roster are making a big enough splash. Check any discussion platform and you aren’t hearing much chatter about Aoife Valkyrie, Teoman, Eddie Dennis, Eliza Alexander or any number of stars. Out of the 40+ wrestlers on the roster, maybe 10 of them are known beyond that show, and only really to the NXT audience. Not even the main roster casual audience knows much about Trent Seven. If and when Jinny pops up on SmackDown to coincide with her boyfriend, Gunther, she’ll be renamed and at most, Michael Cole and Pat McAfee will casually mention she’s been in NXT UK in the past before moving on and treating her like a whole new entity with a fresh start.
The truth of the matter is that very few people, in the grand scheme of things, watch NXT UK. Between you readers here at eWrestlingNews, my audience over at Smark Out Moment and the metrics I’ve gathered writing at Bleacher Report and The Ring Report, I can confirm the interest just isn’t there. NXT UK material gets relatively no clicks compared even to NXT, which still pales in comparison to Raw and SmackDown by several levels of magnitude.
The only shows that perform worse than NXT UK are NXT Level Up and WWE Main Event. Those basically don’t even exist to most people—including my fellow writers, on most sites!
Maybe, in a time of budget cuts and cost-saving, we could be looking at the descent into destruction for the NXT UK brand as a whole.
Worlds Collide
It all has to be leading somewhere, right? Wouldn’t it be disappointing if this is just another equivalent of the random “talent exchange” ideas WWE has done in the past, where it just abruptly ends out of nowhere in the future and reverts back to normal with no lasting repercussions whatsoever?
It’s been a few years since we’ve seen a Worlds Collide event. Currently, there are no officially announced special episodes of NXT or premium live events scheduled. We can assume Halloween Havoc will take place either October 25 or November 1 and War Games will go down sometime in November, but isn’t it a bit strange NXT UK has no presence during this promotion for Clash at the Castle in Wales, particularly after NXT UK TakeOver: Cardiff never went down like it was intended?
The way I see it, Satomura is either dropping her title to Davenport or Emilia McKenzie, who hasn’t shown anything to prove she’s ready for that. Davenport makes more sense, and since she’s targeting the NXT title, too, doesn’t it make sense for a champion versus champion scenario?
Tyler Bate just had a stare down with Bron Breakker. Title for title. Let’s merge. It isn’t as though Bate was the game plan with Dragunov before the injury, anyway. Maybe WWE decided to put the belt on Bate to make him the first and last NXT UK champion, since it would have made more sense for Trent Seven to win.
Briggs and Jensen have mostly feuded with Pretty Deadly. Now, Gallus is on their tails. But they’ve also already went after Diamond Mine. The Creed Brothers holding the NXT tag team titles alongside JB and BJ with the UK titles is painting a similar picture. Gallus can beat Briggs and Jensen, then challenge Julius and Brutus Creed, who can beat them.
That only leaves the NXT UK Heritage Cup and the North American Championship, since the women’s tag titles aren’t a factor (but you can always have two women from NXT UK fight Kayden Carter and Katana Chance). Carmelo Hayes is fighting both heels and faces, so Noam Dar against him isn’t off the table entirely.
Getting rid of NXT UK cuts down on operation costs. They don’t need to rent out BT Sport Studios or find any other spots to tape. The roster can be trimmed down, releasing the talent who aren’t willing to travel and/or have been ruled not necessarily worth the investment. The belts can be merged with a big special that might drum up more interest in NXT and NXT UK. Then, once the NXT UK talent goes over to NXT to bolster that roster, that allows more room for the NXT men and women to graduate to Raw and SmackDown, as many of them are more than ready for the main roster.
This may not happen, mind you. WWE might specifically have a deal with Peacock that demands they keep NXT UK as that streaming service’s exclusive content. But we’ve already seen 205 Live turn into Level Up, so maybe they just start filming another show at the CWC instead? Maybe we just get two hours of Level Up per week, and that makes operational costs CONSIDERABLY lower.
I think this is an avenue worth exploring, and if it happens in the coming months, I’d love to come back to this original post and revisit it to see how things played out.
But what do you think? Is this heading in that direction? Will there be some other consequence from this? If it does go down, who would you want to see hold the titles and go to the NXT brand? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!
