Shawn Michaels on Contralona: "NXT reignites WWE Superstars' passion for the business"
Tomorrow, Sunday, July 30th, a new edition of NXT's historic Great American Bash will be held at the H-E-B Center in Cedar Park in Texas, with the amazing collaboration of Cody Rhodes, who will perform the intro for the WWE's third brand's PLE. Following Goldrush, and with NXT ratings growing up 22%, NXT will take this opportunity to get back on the road, starting Saturday, Sept. 30, in Bakersfield, Calif. with No Mercy. To talk about this special weekend for NXT, WWE Hall of Fame Shawn Michaels held an online conference Thursday afternoon which Contralona was not going to miss, invited by WWE. Here is what HBK told us.
Shawn Michaels on the impact of the main roster's Superstars on NXT
Recently we have seen how, in the weekly episodes of NXT, several WWE Superstars, either from Raw or SmackDown, end up having a prominence never seen before in their careers. We saw it a year ago with Dolph Ziggler as the NXT Champion, then also with Apollo Crews and even now with The Judgment Day and Dominik Mysterio dominating almost every week. Precisely due to this great job of mixing main roster Superstars with NXT developing talents Joel Torres asked HBK about the impact that main roster's Superstars are having on NXT and viceversa.
"I'll say this I I think it does a fantastic job the one thing that everyone comments on when they come down here is the fact and I don't ever mean to make it sound like it's misery on the main roster by any stretch but they have fun again and we have an extremely relaxed atmosphere down here. You know, sometimes it's just for a short little run but they have a great deal of freedom down here they have a little less kind of structure and rigidness down here or if they come back down here and we're going to have them for quite some time and it's more of a repackaged deal it is still a very collaborative experiment that we have with them and look they also start to they find their passion again I think they get reinvigorated in small. I think they get it, reignites their passion again and reminds them why they got into this when they come back down here. It's a fantastic environment it re-encourages them I think they get rejuvenated and then when they go back onto the main roster they're ready to go and look and the bands and the company are getting a Superstar that is once again ready to go believing you in who he is and what he's about to do and again I was always very fortunate I loved going out there performing and when it came even close to the time that I thought like maybe it wasn't there I stepped away but some people just have to step away for a little while fall back in love with this and certainly people do that when they come down here to NXT".
There is no doubt, the interactions will continue to happen given the success they are having. In fact, tomorrow at The Great American Bash we will have three main cast talents competing in two of the biggest matches of the night; the first one will be for the North American Championship, where the Champion, Dominik Mysterio, will face two challengers Wes Lee and Mustafa Ali on an amazing Triple Threat; and on the second match, the focus will also be on not only a revitalized Baron Corbin, but also on the debut of Gable Steveson. The Olympic Gold medalist will kick off his NXT career in Texas.
