Finn Bálor Feels WWE NXT UK Took All The Talent, ‘Starved’ The European Indie Scene

Bálor offers his thoughts about NXT UK.

WWE’s NXT U.K. brand was in operation from October 2018 until September 2022. The brand is now defunct, and there has been no recent update on the company’s follow-up plans to launch NXT Europe.

The subject of NXT U.K. came up during Finn Bálor’s appearance on Cody Rhodes’ What Do You Wanna Talk About? podcast. Bálor offered his thoughts about the brand and stated that he feels it took all the marquee talent from the European wrestling scene, and that starved the indies.

“When NXT U.K. started, which was a huge thing at the time for British and European wrestling, I feel like it kind of took all the talent, and it starved all the indies, and it took a long time for them to rebuild, and for a lot of them, it hasn’t even happened yet, because there’s no one to learn from or look up to. Like the guys Tyler (Bate) and Pete (Dunne) and everyone else who came to WWE. Now the younger kids don’t have anyone to learn from. So, I feel like there was probably a huge negative effect on the (pool) of talent that WWE took out of that territory, you know? But, slowly, it’s starting to rebuild.”

In April 2025, WWE Chief Content Officer Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque stated that NXT Europe would still be happening.

If the quote in this article is used, please credit What Do You Wanna Talk About? with Cody Rhodes with an H/T to Fightful for the transcription.