Mark Andrews thinks that NXT UK was actually a good thing for British wrestling.
The creation of the WWE developmental brand has been met with mixed reactions over the years. Some have accused it of killing the UK indie scene, while others have praised it for giving more wrestlers a chance to earn a living in the UK.
Former NXT UK Tag Team Champion Mark Andrews is in the latter camp. The Welsh wrestler recently spoke with Sean Thorne from The Winning Edge Podcast from Casino.org, and was asked about NXT UK’s impact.
He revealed that there simply wasn’t enough money in British wrestling to support the wrestlers full-time. The Welshman claimed that they needed a large company, like WWE, AEW or even Netflix, to give the stars the opportunity to earn good money for their craft.
Andrews finished by noting that while the fans romanticized the punk-rock nature of the scene, ti was simply not sustainable without the WWE.
“It’s really easy to believe. Okay, these UK indie shows are selling out up and down the country. The scenes on fire. But me, personally, I know for a lot of the top wrestlers in the UK around that time that there wasn’t enough money to be made for many of the top tier talent to make a full-time living from wrestling.”
“So unless a massive company did come along, whether it was WWE, whether it was a New Japan or an AEW or even a non-wrestling company like a Netflix or, you know, some big TV corporation. Because I know fans like to believe that, like, it could have just existed as it was and gone on forever.”
“But like, there’s only so long you can kind of put that damage on your body with no promise of, like, real earnings. And I’m not trying to say that it’s about the money, because it’s not that. But like, when you’re an indie wrestler and you get hurt, there’s not this magical insurance that pays out loads of money. Do you know what I mean?”
“It’s a really hard job to be consistently good at and get consistently paid. So I just think that. I feel like the fans have this kind of romanticized idea that the scene could have continued as it was without WWE getting involved. I think the best thing for the scene was WWE getting involved.”
However, Mark Andrews did also add that NXT UK was a direct response to World of Sport. which would have added more jobs had it not been an abject failure.
“From my experience with NXT UK, before it was even called NXT UK, when it was WWE, UK, that first tournament came around in the space of two months. They got that together, literally, from like, the October to the January, and that was only really a reaction to the World Of Sport being announced on ITV.”
He also thinks that NXT UK was the best thing to happen to the UK indie scene.
