Although Kyle O’Reilly’s rise as a singles wrestler on NXT may have come as a surprise to some, but Triple H says it’s been in the works for a while.
During a media conference call ahead on NXT TakeOver 31, Triple H was asked about O’Reilly’s ascent and title challenge against Finn Balor at TakeOver. Triple H revealed it was something that NXT was planning for a while and admitted that the current circumstances brought upon by the pandemic may have accelerated those plans by a bit.
Regardless, Triple H spoke highly of O’Reilly’s abilities as a performer in both tag team and singles wrestling and that both Balor and O’Reilly had been wanting to work together for some time.
“That’s been something we’ve been talking about doing for a while and in the works. If you were to ask me, did it speed up the process, probably. Not by a massive amount but probably a little bit. Just given all the circumstances, I think we got here a little quicker. I would have liked to have more time to flesh out that story in the long run. Like we were saying earlier, stuff changes on a week-to-week basis right now, sometimes day-to-day, so you’re just putting the pieces together and get to where you get to. We’ve been talking about Kyle as a singles guy. He’s such a great performer and it’s not to take away from him in a tag team, but he’s such a great performer and is naturally charismatic. He’s funny, he’s all those things that you’ve seen doing what’s he’s doing, but I think people will see that at a completely different level and I’m excited for him. He’s excited for that opportunity. If you ever met Kyle, there’s not a nicer guy out there and when you see something like this happening to him, it’s awesome and I can’t wait to see what he does with it. I know it’s going to be spectacular. He and Finn have been clamoring about working with each other for a long time to me and anyone that would listen. Here we are and it’s exciting,” Triple H said.
Balor and O’Reilly will face off against each other for the NXT Championship at TakeOver 31, taking place on October 4. Fightful will have live coverage of the event.
You can check out Triple H’s comments and the full media conference call in the video at the top of the page.
