Booker T Believes NXT Should Go Back To Being A Farm System For WWE
On his Hall of Fame podcast, two time WWE Hall of Famer Booker T was asked for his thoughts on the recent releases from WWE's NXT brand. At first Booker chose to comment on how overstocked with talent he felt NXT was over the last few years, and how it differed from his philosophy.
"I was always one of those guys that felt like there was a lot of talent in NXT that, I don't know," Booker said. "I'm not saying they weren't good workers or anything like that, but I just always wondered 'man, why are there so many guys down there?' So for me, I always thought the system, me personally, if it was my system, guys would have a two year limit as far as if I thought they were going to produce or not. If I was going to sign them that way, if I was going to do something with them, I would give them two years.
"But for me, when a guy walks into Reality of Wrestling, I know if I'm going to use him on the card in five minutes. I don't know man. Let me tell you this here, there's not going to be one guy in that system that's been down there for six or seven years that's going to make it to Smackdown or RAW, or to my main roster. That's just not going to happen. I'm not going to harbor a bunch of guys just to pay them. I don't see no end game in that. Having a lot of talent just harbored in one spot, that doesn't work out for me."
Booker also touched on how NXT's defeat in the Wednesday Night War against AEW may have played a part in what happened. Regardless of the reasoning, Booker believes NXT going back to a strictly developmental promotion should ultimately be good for WWE.
"I was reading an article today, the Rise and Fall of NXT," Booker said. "And they were talking about 'the war is over', because the war was with NXT and AEW. Right now AEW is pulling much better numbers than NXT, so let's just say, for keepsake, the war is over. Let's just say that. I always felt NXT should've been a farm league for the stars in WWE. Smackdown stars, WWE RAW, because that's where the money is. That's where the endgame is. And to create something else, it's just like creating another WCW. Something we're gonna have to put in a whole lot of work in trying to make work.
"You look at NXT and you look at the main roster and it's totally different games. When a guy comes from NXT to the main roster, it's a totally different game. You look at Karrion Kross in NXT, you look at him on the main roster. So you cannot sustain something like that when you're really focusing on this over here. So for me, it going back to being a farm league, I don't know what they're going to do with it, but to me, NXT being a farm league for the WWE I think is what it always should've been focused on. That's just my opinion."
You can watch the full video below.