Back in 2012, NXT was rebooted and the show went on to become a legitimate third brand for WWE. In the years that followed NXT arguably became the most talked about brand under the WWE umbrella thanks to the stacked roster and the success of the Takeover events.
While talking about his run with the NXT brand on Developmentally Speaking, Jaxson Ryker claimed that he heard Vince McMahon couldn’t stand Triple H’s NXT, and the success irritated McMahon.
“We would go in sell out arenas, sell out live events. From what I heard, Vince could not stand it. Because what Hunter did, and I loved it, Hunter and Shawn, and some others behind the scenes, they were putting together the shows. They would listen to our input. They would go, ‘OK, what kind of music do you like for your theme song? What would you wanna do in this match in these circumstances?’
At times on the main roster, it was a lot of like, micromanaging your matches. Not all the time, but there was a lot of micromanaging. In NXT, Hunter had the ultimate say so. If he’d go, ‘Maybe you should try this.’ And if he did that half of the time what he wanted you to do was going to be better. But he’s very open to your character, or you putting a match together. The product was just different. I think that’s why Vince was irritated because it was just different. People loved it.”
In 2021, the black and gold era of NXT officially came to an end when the show was rebooted once again as NXT 2.0. The NXT 2.0 branding was later removed in 2022. Triple H is currently the head of creative on the main roster and Vince McMahon is no longer with the company.