SmackDown Crowd at Madison Square Garden Boos NXT Ad

This past week’s episode of WWE SmackDown took place in Madison Square Garden, long considered to be one of the most iconic wrestling venues. During the show, an ad for the upcoming NXT reboot played on the tron for fans in attendance. The ad showed the updated logo and color scheme, plugging the upcoming shift for NXT that’s scheduled for this Tuesday.

Unfortunately, the fans weren’t into it.

The crowd instantly voiced their dissatisfaction, erupting in loud boos across the entire arena. Julian Cannon of Daily DDT shared video recorded live at the event, where you can hear the audible groans and boos.

NXT gained a reputation for being an exciting and entertaining brand, delivering indie-styled pro wrestling with the higher production of WWE shows. It was a great alternative to Raw and SmackDown, focusing highly on in-ring work and featuring simpler, more old school storylines.

It’s easy to see how NXT fans are a bit put off by the potential changes. It’s one of those “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” scenarios, so the upcoming changes aren’t being welcome by those who enjoyed the show’s previous format. Add to that the large number of released talent, and the rejection of NXT 2.0 definitely makes sense.

The past few weeks of NXT have still been solid overall, but it’s hard to tell how the product will change with this relaunch on Tuesday. Looks like we’ll find out then.