WWE Rumor Roundup - Highly-respected Superstar fired, Paul Heyman cancels romantic storyline, Jinder Mahal's status and more - 19th April 2020

#2 NXT's expansion plans 'dead in the water'

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has led to a massive economic slowdown and the effects were all there to be seen last week when WWE released and furloughed an unprecedented number of talents and employees.

However, the pandemic has affected WWE much more than we'd originally imagined.

Dave Meltzer revealed on the Wrestling Observer Radio that WWE's plans to set up an NXT brand in Japan are dead in the water.

Triple H's big expansion plans for the Black and Gold brand, which could have seen various off-shoots around the world, may now be nixed until further notice. Meltzer also expected massive cuts with regards to NXT UK.

He noted the following:

NXT Japan looks to be dead in the water, yes. All kinds of expansion like that are going to be dead for a while. All the new NXT offshoots, I don't know what's going to happen with UK but I expect major cuts in the UK as well. Yeah, but, NXT Japan ain't going to happen now. I mean, there is even an article on Tokyo Sports today that actually said that they talked to some people that were going to be working there and it's like, yeah, it's not happening.