Paul “Triple H” Levesque was interviewed by Brian Fritz of Sporting News and was asked whether he pushed for NXT to air on USA Network. “No,” Levesque said. “It’s funny, I really haven’t. This has been an exciting in that … break this down however you want and you can look at it and say holiday week or however you want. NBCUniversal, USA Network, the No. 1 cable channel in America, is taking an hour or primetime television and giving it to NXT which is huge from where this has come the last two, three years, where NXT has come. And they called us for it.
“It wasn’t like we went to them and pitched it. This was a “we would like to do Monday Raw, Tuesday Smackdown, Wednesday we’ll do NXT.’ When they sent me the email, our television studio, to ask if I would be interested in doing this, I was like, is this a trick question? Yeah, I’ll put NXT on USA for a week and expose it to a much, much, much larger audience than what we have on the (WWE) network.”
Levesque was also asked how difficult it would be to sell USA Network on the idea of becoming the television home for NXT. “To be honest, I don’t know,” he said. “Again, I’ll say it’s an hour of primetime television on a Wednesday night from 7-8 (ET) on USA. That is not cheap or easy to get real estate. That’s primetime television on the No. 1 cable channel. It’s a big deal and they came to us. I don’t know. If that’s something an opportunity to them, I really don’t know. I do know the opportunity that I have for sure right now which is (Wednesday) night and the show we put together and the show that will air is spectacular.” Read the full interview at SportingNews.com.
Powell’s POV: NXT is airing as part of USA Network’s WWE week, but one can only imagine that if the show does a good number it will create demand for the show either from USA Network or other potential partners. It will be interesting to see how it performs in the ratings, and I can’t help but wonder what type of number they could have popped if this were a live special. Triple H also discussed the rise of Andrade Almas to NXT Champion, the competition between the main roster and NXT on Takeover weekends, and more.
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