A new report has claimed that some within NXT UK are feeling uncertain about what the future might hold after two sets of television tapings were cancelled.
In January 2017 a two-day tournament was held to crown the first-ever United Kingdom Champion. While Tyler Bate eventually triumphed over Pete Dunne in the final, it wasn’t until October 2018 that the NXT UK brand premiered for the first time.
Since the launch of the brand, stars such as Toni Storm, Rhea Ripley, Doudrop, and Gunther have used NXT UK to launch their WWE careers.
However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic production of the show ceased for four months in 2020, while later that year and into 2021, WWE made extensive cuts to their talent roster, including a number of NXT stars in the United States.
Although this led to fears about the future of NXT UK, the show has continued, but now it’s future again feels uncertain.
The show is taped at BT Sports studios, which are also used for numerous other sports related projects. This led to two recent tapings being cancelled, which in turn has created more uncertainty within the brand.
Writing in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer notes that there is now an “uneasiness” within the crew following the tapings being shut down.
“There is a lot of uneasiness within the NXT U.K. crew. The next two sets of television tapings were cancelled on 8/9. The reason given was that BT Sports Studios, where they tape, had to be used for football/soccer coverage. But as you can imagine with the talent how the reaction is, given you could tape somewhere else and shutting down tapings is never a good sign. Nobody really has been told anything.”
NXT UK is currently going through a number of significant changes with now-former Champion, Ilja Dragunov, forced to relinquish the NXT UK Championship due to injury. It was reported that Tyler Bate became the new champion after winning a tournament to determine a new title holder.