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After trying to establish NXT as its own brand with its own Superstars and its own championship ecosystem under the 2.0 moniker, Shawn Michaels has decided to turn back the clock and take a different approach to developmental, looking back on the days when Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn were on top of the black and gold brand instead of Bron Breakker.
Discussing the synergistic approach that NXT has had with the rest of the WWE roster over the past few months, with everyone from Seth Rollins to Baron Corbin, and the entirety of The Judgment Day working matches in Orlando, Florida, HBK noted that he loves how WWE is handling the talent exchange before naming off a few performers who could look right at home back down at the Performance Center.
“Certainly, the synergy is a benefit to us. After the last year and a half of having regular, not just main roster superstars, but developing and getting over NXT Superstars, has made a big difference. We had some growing pains early on, but now people understand and are invested in a great deal of the NXT characters. I’d be lying if having synergy with the main roster is not a plus for us. It’s huge, obviously. Everybody knows that in the developmental system, anybody who wants to get better in this line of work, the best thing you can do is be in the ring with people better than you. That’s something we’ve been fortunate to have here lately in NXT. There are a lot of different reasons for the ratings, but I’ll take whatever we can get. We’re excited that we have good momentum, and everyone is real excited about Great American Bash because the card is stacked and is going to be fantastic,” Shawn Michaels said via Fightful.
“As far as who else we would like to have, I have to be honest, we are thrilled to get what we do get. I’d love to have Brawling Brutes, wouldn’t mind Imperium, I’d love to have Sami and Kevin. Anybody who is willing to come down and help us out on the main roster, I don’t think we’d be turning a lot of people down.”
Whoa, KO, Sami, and Imperium back in developmental? Five former NXT Champions who are now all in the WWE main event title picture back in Orlando to show off their abilities and prove whether or not stars like Carmelo Hayes, Wes Lee, and the DeAngelo Family have what it takes to elevate to that level too? While that feels rather unlikely unless Survivor Series takes a very different turn in 2023, the possibilities truly are endless.
Sami Zayn feels like the Elimination Chamber was just chapter one of his story.
Though Shawn Michaels would love to see Sami Zayn get in the ring with his top talents in NXT, in the opinion of the “Underdog from the Underground,” his own personal pursuit of becoming a World Champion in WWE might take precedence over such a roster-building endeavor, as, in an interview with Xfinity alongside Kevin Owens, he revealed that the Elimination Chamber may have simply been the start of a new professional wrestling journey.
“It would have been kind of perfect, a storybook ending, if I had dethroned Roman. Sure, of course, but if you look at more five years from now, ten years from now, the totality of where it all lies, I think you will see that it is one great chapter, hopefully, in a story. For sure, unquestionably, whether it was the right or wrong decision, the way it ended, there is no question that had it gone my way that night in Montreal or at WrestleMania or something with Roman, unquestionably it would have been a moment that would have definitely been replayed many times. I still think what we did was very special, and as you can see by what has continued to happen with The Usos and Roman, that story still has some special moments. This is one of those things where you just need time to see where it all falls,” Sami Zayn said via Fightful.
“I don't know if this is a valid comparison, but it's almost like when Brock (Lesnar) beat Undertaker and ended the streak. It was such a shocking moment that you kind of didn't know what to make of it. I remember watching it live with Juice Robinson. He was so frazzled by it, ‘I need five years to know whether this was the right call or not.' It's kind of true. You had to wait several years to see all the consequences and ripple effect of that moment. It took five years to see ‘this all goes back to do that.' Maybe it was chapter one, for me personally, in this huge story that is my quest to one day win the big one.”
Even one year back, it would have been impossible to imagine a world where Sami Zayn was credibly in the conversation to win a World Championship, with his ceiling pretty well defined at the Intercontinental Championship/United States Championship level by WWE's creative. But now? Now who really knows? If WWE wants to embrace his underdog story and really go all-in on one of the hottest individual performances of 2023, then who knows, maybe there's a future where Zayn either holds up the golden WWE Universal Championship or has the far flashier WWE World Heavyweight Championship around his waist?
