Shawn Michaels: “Halloween Havoc Kicked Off NXT’s Rebirth”
The man behind WWE’s NXT product is calling the recent Halloween Havoc part of the brand’s rebirth.
Halloween Havoc took place on October 22nd with plenty of stipulation matches taking place. The spectacular five-man Ladder Match for the vacant NXT North American Title was won by Wes Lee, Roxanne Perez beat her rival Cora Jade in a Weapons Wild Match, Apollo Crews defeated Grayson Waller in a Casket Match, Julius Creed dominated Damon Kemp to win an ambulance, Mandy Rose continued her year-long run as the NXT Women’s Champion and Bron Breakker retained the NXT Title in a scintillating triple threat main event.
As WWE’s Senior Vice President of Talent Development Creative, Shawn Michaels gets to call the shots as far as the creative direction of the NXT brand. It is his vision that we are seeing play out on television during the NXT TV show on Tuesday nights and at events like Halloween Havoc.
The NXT brand has undergone a lot of changes over the last year. In September 2021, it was rebranded as NXT 2.0 as some older talent was pushed out while there was more of a focus on younger talent. Within the last two months, the NXT brand has ditched the colorful 2.0 colors for a more traditional white/black/gold logo. It’s a new era of NXT under the vision of Michaels and WWE’s Chief Content Officer, Paul “Triple H” Levesque, who used to run NXT for about a decade before Michaels took over in the fall of 2021 when Triple H had a heart issue.
While speaking to Sports Illustrated, the two-time WWE Hall of Famer known as the “Heartbreak Kid” spoke about how it was rebirth for the developmental brand.
“NXT has been around for a long time, but the Halloween Havoc show kicked off our rebirth I hope people are tuning in to see the future of this business give their best.”
Speaking like a proud coach that loves seeing his players succeed, Michaels spoke about how important it was to keep developing talent and watching them grow as performers.
“We want to continue to develop talent, Creatively, try to round them out as performers, characters [and] athletes. Every time we do that, every positive we have and every step in the right direction we take, that helps us develop our identity.”
“It’s always somebody’s NXT, and this one belongs to our talent. We’re all here growing together, we work really hard, and we’re going to learn and grow together. We’re the developmental brand that helps build superstars.”
This Tuesday’s October 24th edition of WWE NXT is being called “Tag Team Title Tuesday” as Pretty Deadly defends their titles against Edris Enofe & Malik Blade while NXT Women’s Tag Team Champions Kayden Carter & Katana Chance will put their titles on the line against Zoey Stark & Nikkita Lyons.