The original plan for WWE NXT was far different than what fans eventually saw when the show launched on the SyFy Network in early 2010.
On a recent edition of “The Ten Count” podcast, PJ Black recalled his time as part of the original NXT and what the initial plan looked like. He said,
“The original plan was for us to live in a house like Ultimate Fighter and actually compete and do actual athletic challenges, but as the wrestling business goes, time ran out and on the day they were like, ‘Let’s write a show’, and then they were like, ‘We don’t even have time to write a show’, so we freestyle pretty much everything. That’s why the matches and the promos were kind of off because it was pretty much all on the fly.”
Instead of living in a house, each NXT ‘rookie’ was paired with a ‘pro’ and would compete in matches and challenges to try and earn immunity from elimination.
Black, then known as Justin Gabriel was teamed with Matt Hardy. The season would be won by Wade Barrett though Black would join the main roster with Barrett as part of the Nexus.
