Triple H On Ricochet's Status Following Nasty Landing At NXT Live Event, U.K. Division Plans
Triple H took part in a media conference call today to discuss this Saturday's NXT Takeover: Chicago event, as well as the U.K. Championship tournament returning. The tournament is underway, with the quarterfinals and finals taking next Monday and Tuesday in London before airing later this month. I asked Triple H how plans have changed for the U.K. division since its launch last year.
"The plan is sorta kinda still the same," he said. "Obviously it's morphed some, it took a lot longer than I would like to get to where we are going back in there and doing this again. In the meantime I think we've exposed some incredible talent like Pete Dunne, Trent Seven, Wolfgang and Tyler [Bate] and everybody to the world that weren't getting to see them to as many people as do now, on an at-least semi-regular basis. So just that part of it has been great.
"Going forward, the plan is still the same, the plan is to get something rolling on the ground there and to move it in that direction. We're headed in that direction, and hopefully we'll have some further announcements soon."
As noted, there was some concern that Ricochet might have been injured at Monday's NXT live event in Paris. Ricochet teamed with Johnny Gargano to face Tommaso Ciampa and The Velveteen Dream, and had a nasty landing when hitting a suicide dive on Dream. Ricochet was helped to the back, but returned to the ring after Gargano picked up the victory for the team. Ricochet then missed Tuesday's NXT live event in Belgium after being scheduled.
Triple H admitted that Ricochet "tweaked himself" at the show in Paris, but is not injured and will still face The Velveteen Dream at Takeover this Saturday.
"He just tweaked himself a little bit in Paris," Triple H said. "He's not injured, we just didn't want to take a chance with it with Takeover just being down the road. The one thing with athletes across the board in any sport, these guys and girls are thoroughbreds and somebody has to pull the reigns on them and tell them, 'let's back off today.' He just tweaked his shoulders a little bit, but he's fine."
We will have live coverage of NXT Takeover this Saturday, as well as a special post-Takeover podcast with Matt Morgan, Chris Featherstone and myself. New subscribers can sign up for the WWE Network today by clicking here and get their first month for free, which includes NXT Takeover: Chicago and WWE Money In The Bank this Sunday.
On the call, Triple H also discussed the possibility of main roster talent moving to NXT to "freshen up", finding a new role for Paul Ellering, Bobby Roode's comments about WWE creating a "new, larger" Performance Center, why the U.K. tournament isn't airing live and more. You can listen to the full conference call below: