Nick Khan Says Taking NXT On The Road Helped Focus On The Future After WrestleMania 41

Nick Khan discusses how the mindset shifted after WrestleMania 41.

A handful of talents will be making their WrestleMania debuts at WrestleMania 42, led by Oba Femi, Je’Von Evans, and Trick Williams.

Speaking to Bill Simmons, Khan explained how WWE put an eye on the future after WrestleMania 41.

“A year ago, right after WrestleMania last year, Triple H and I got together and said, ‘Let’s take a look at the future. Let’s look at our top male superstars.’ (John) Cena, it was obviously his retirement year. We have Roman (Reigns), Cody (Rhodes), (CM) Punk, Seth (Rollins), Brock (Lesnar). You can put Drew (McIntyre) in there. You look at their ages, all 40 years or older. We said, ‘We have to make sure we’re preparing for the future here.’ We went down to the Performance Center to see Shawn Michaels and Matt Bloom, who run NXT, and said, ‘Let’s take a look at the talent here.’ How come, when DX first started to pop, Triple H was 26, why is it taking longer? Shawn said there is one thing we could really use the company’s help on: we need to be able to tour NXT. Doing it from the studio every week, we don’t get the authentic fan response that young wrestlers need to know if their work is working well enough. ‘We need to be able to take NXT on the road.’ No problem, give us a week. We came back to Shawn and took NXT on the road in a month. Then, you saw the quick acceleration of Oba Femi, Trick Williams, Je’Von Evans, soon to be others coming up from NXT,” said Khan.

Also making their WrestleMania debuts are Stephanie Vaquer, Lash Legend, JD McDonagh, and Dragon Lee.

If you use any of the quotes above, please credit and link to the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.