Former WWE producer Lance Storm recently appeared on the latest episode of Figure Four Daily on WrestlingObserver.com for an interview with Bryan Alvarez. The two covered several subjects, but the most noteworthy was his opinion on the current NXT product and Triple H’s role in the Wednesday night wars with AEW. While Triple H has had critics claiming he was a failure, Storm refuted the notion as nonsense.
“I’ve heard it for a long time [people who say] ‘oh, Hunter’s really fallen from grace after you know, NXT failed.’ And I’m like, ‘what?'”
Alvarez cited the loss to AEW on Wednesdays as the reason for these claims, “Well, we say that because hurting AEW was the goal from Vince and Dunne and everybody when the show was moved to Wednesdays…He was removed from power. I mean, that’s it. They saw that that was the goal and that was the failure.”
Alvarez continued and also defended Triple H and the show he had made famous, “I’m on the same page as you, dude. He was 1000 times better than what we’ve got now with NXT 2.0. But the reason I used the term failure is that it was the task that he was responsible for. So it’s not even his fault. He had all sorts of disadvantages, but they won at the end of the day.”
Storm responded, “But it’s the word again. If your job was to sell a million hamburgers and you didn’t so, we fired you and replaced you. And then told the new guy, ‘yeah, if you sell three or four salads, you’re a success.’ It’s like, ‘what?!’ It’s like you move to Tuesday where they don’t have head-to-head anymore…Maybe the task was the unfair part, not any shortcomings from Hunter.”
Storm pointed out the successful NXT brand and TakeOver shows under Hunter and noted that many stars on the main roster now had gotten their start in NXT under Triple H.
He said, “NXT TakeOvers was one of the greatest string of quality shows you’re ever going to find. And as far as producing people from scratch, it’s like, sure, there wasn’t a ton. Now there are a few. But again, it’s like, the goal is to put people on the roster that are good. And there was a point where almost every single person on the main roster came through NXT. So he was succeeding at that.”
The two then got into the discussion of comparing the current incarnation of NXT against AEW, for which Alvarez saw no potential in 2.0 rising to meet them in competition or regaining the momentum that its black and yellow predecessor once had. Storm seemed to agree and believed that WWE should never have tried to compete with AEW.
“They should have left NXT on the Network. They should have left Hunter in charge of it, and they should have left AEW alone. Then they wouldn’t have a failure on the record. Instead, they would have the wonderful gold and black still happening and the great string of NXT TakeOvers. It would have been so much better.” (H/T WrestlingNews.com)
