While the speculation over whether or not Adam Cole is leaving WWE has dominated headlines for the past few weeks, former United Kingdom and NXT Tag Team Champion Pete Dunne has found himself in a similar situation. News broke back in early August that the British star was facing a similar situation to Cole’s, and Fightful Select‘s Sean Ross Sapp returned with a new update on Wednesday. According to Sapp, Dunne was recently offered a deal but it could not be confirmed whether or not he has signed it.
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Dunne was present on this week’s NXT alongside Ridge Holland, Oney Lorcan and a returning Danny Burch. He also stepped forward as a possible contender for Samoa Joe’s NXT Championship.
Meanwhile, Cole was nowhere to be found after losing the “Undisputed Finale” match against Kyle O’Reilly at Sunday’s NXT TakeOver 36 event. Sapp reported earlier this week that Cole’s contract is set to expire this coming Friday and that WWE is likely going to make one final offer between now and then.
If Dunne decides to stay with WWE he’ll have to contend with the upcoming changes that are heading NXT’s way. WWE president Nick Khan spoke about those impending changes in a recent interview with Ariel Helwani.
“We are doing a complete revamp on NXT, led by Triple H, who is really one of the architects of the original NXT. What we found — it’s part of why we did the tryout yesterday — what we want to make sure is easy for folks who want to be WWE Superstars, is figuring out how to become WWE Superstars,” Khan said.
“In terms of an NXT re-brand, look for it in the next couple of weeks. It’s going to have a whole new look, it’s going to have a whole new feel — and we believe — because of a lot of the indie wrestlers, if you will, have come through our system and are in our system with SmackDown and Raw now. We don’t want to just keep doing that same thing, we want to look elsewhere for great, young talent,” he continued.
Triple H, the brains behind NXT, was asked about the same topic late last week following WWE’s Las Vegas Tryouts.
“It’s a funny thing, people talk about shifting. It never really shifted,” he said. “So if you go back and look at the hiring process, (it’s) not the hiring process of a television show, it’s a hiring process of who we’re looking to train and make WWE Superstars. Long term. If you go back and look at it, it hasn’t shifted. It’s been the same process. I don’t negate anybody from a standpoint of, ‘I wrestled some independent stuff,’ ‘Well all right, you’re out!’ That’s not a factor to me, but it’s also not the factor that makes me go, ‘Okay, you’re in.’ When they get in here today, if somebody goes in and hits the ropes perfectly every time, has every roll perfect, does all the stuff, makes it look easy because they’ve been training, that’s not really showing me anything. You should be able to, if you’ve been training, if you’ve been working indies you should be able to do all of that.
“To me, what is the potential long-term? What is that potential? And are they willing to do the work to live up to that potential. Vince used to always say, ‘We’re a variety show’ — we are. In some manner, you need a little bit of everything,” he continued. “That’s the key to all of this. But people hear one statement and then make one (assumption). ‘Now it’s that. No, now it’s this.’ It always has been.”
