Triple H Talks NXT On USA Network, Recognizing NXT As An Alternative Brand Instead Of Developmental, Mentoring Main Roster Callups

Triple H recently appeared on the In This Corner podcast with Brian Campbell; you can read a few transcribed highlights (via Brian Campbell for CBS Sports) below:

Does Triple H think tonight’s NXT on USA special is the next step for WWE adding a true third brand? 

“It can be; at this point I don’t know. What I do know is it was a hell of an opportunity. If you look at NXT over the last few years, it has grown into something where NBCUniversal — USA [Network], the No. 1 cable channel in America — came to us and said we would like to take an hour of primetime and give to NXT. That’s awesome.

“To me, that says a lot about the brand, where it’s at, and the value of it. I’m really excited about that. We put together a hell of a show and hopefully it will be a lot of people because not everyone has been exposed to it.”

Triple H says NXT may be better suited as an ‘alternative’ brand due to always needing to give new talent a platform: 

“In some ways it will always be some kind of developmental because you are always going to have new talent trying to learn their craft in that brand. But over time, it will become what I think it is now — an alternative, a third brand. This is just another step forward in that.”

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Triple H talks about being a mentor to NXT callups after they’ve made the WWE roster: 

“I still see them at Raw and SmackDown, I’m just not controlling it. When they come to me now, I’m trying more to help them through the system as opposed to them coming to me for the answer. I’m trying to help them navigate a different environment and handle things and even how to have a relationship with Vince.

“But there definitely is a connection point and a paternal kind of thing. It’s hard not to work with these talent and to want to see them succeed and to see the light bulb go off and to see them kind of get it, or when they come back after they have had a match or get called up, that success moment. It’s easy to be jaded to it but that first time you walk out on Raw, that’s real. That’s a different world and the pride level to that is huge.”