The current synergy between WWE NXT and the main roster didn’t exist when Tyler Breeze was with the company.
Former WWE Superstar Tyler Breeze was a recent guest on Busted Open. When asked if there was a divide between NXT and the WWE Main roster while he was there, Breeze said there absolutely was.
“For sure. I mean, it definitely — there was a massive divide back when it was like FCW and stuff like that,” Tyler Breeze said. “But once it became NXT, then it was like the bridge was at least established. It was like okay, now we’re at least WWE is talking to NXT. But it was very different thinking in terms of how Vince does things and how Hunter does things.
“Especially then, that was like the building blocks of NXT to when he was really invested in it. They say it almost like a funny little cliche now of like we were his kids. But we were really kind of building his vision of what he wanted as this alternative, almost to the point of what AEW is now where it was an alternative group of guys people you didn’t really know, but it was it had a different feel from RAW and SmackDown type of thing.
“And I just think again, it’s not a bad thing, but Vince, he’s been around forever. He knows what the biggest promotions are. He knows what RAW is. He knows what SmackDown is. He knows a different style or a different thinking, and again, neither one is good or bad. They’re all very good and successful. But Triple H, I think at the time, had a very specific vision in his mind. And I don’t know if that lined up with what Vince saw NXT as.
Tyler Breeze says Vince McMahon kept up with NXT early on
“I knew at a time Vince was actually keeping up with what NXT was doing. He would watch the shows. I know specifically he was watching our NXT Fatal 4-Way and even calling down to check on things and just really getting eyes on it as opposed to being a little hands-off. And I know as NXT kind of went along, he became a little bit more hands-off, and it would just be more of like, ‘Okay, who’s like the best people? This guy, this guy, this guy? Cool, give them to me.’
“And you just almost start from scratch with those people. And I know a lot of the talent at the time was kind of scratching their heads going, ‘Well, why didn’t I do what I was doing in NXT that was working?’ You know what I mean? But instead, you scrapped it, and you start from scratch, and the talented people make it work. But it’s just very much a disconnect, yes. But just very different thinking on certain things. So sometimes it lines up, sometimes it doesn’t.”
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