Shawn Michaels: New Day Is Open To Talking About Being In NXT Long Term

On Tuesday’s NXT, New Day (Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods) made a surprise appearance as part of the Pretty Deadly Christmas Story. 

Woods & Kingston confronted Elton Prince & Kit Wilson, challenging them to an NXT Tag Team Title bout at NXT Deadline. 

Speaking on the NXT Deadline media call, Shawn Michaels was asked if New Day might be sticking around long-term in NXT. 

“We never go into it asking for long-term, we kind of take everybody’s temperature when they come here and hope that it does. We understand if it doesn’t and the commitments, but I’ll say this, they really enjoyed being here Tuesday and I know that there is an aspect, Xavier started here and has wanted to come back for a long time. It’s amazing, the two young guys, and they’ve been doing this for a long time and have accomplished everything. They get to that point where they want to start to be able to give back and I think that’s where New Day is. I won’t lie, I am absolutely hoping to take advantage of that. They really had a great time and we are going to try and do everything we can to keep them here as long as we can. I asked them if we could broach those conversations and they were certainly open to it. I’m really hoping it’s certainly more than a one-time thing. It just becomes a question of how long. Those are always the questions and we understand that, those are the ones that they have to think about and talk with family members and those are things that have to get straightened out with NXT and main roster talents, but they appear to be open to the conversation, which we are very excited about,” he said.

Woods has a history in NXT, working on the brand from 2011 to 2014 before moving to the main roster. Kingston wrestled a couple of NXT matches in 2010 and 2013. Big E, who is currently sidelined with a neck injury, is a former NXT Champion. 

Later on the call, Michaels was asked about the conversations he has to have with Triple H and company about bringing talent to NXT. 

“There are a lot of main roster talent that have NXT roots and a lot of them like to come back and help out. We have a lot of them that live here in Orlando, that’s a big advantage to us as well. Usually, the process is something like, if we’re thinking about from a creative standpoint and we have it at X date, I do everything I can to get on the horn to Hunter [Triple H] and Bruce (Prichard), and see what the possibility is. Then, there are some, I don’t know whether it’s right or not, I take advantage of the cool titles and, ‘Hey, this is a quick one out of the blue, this is what we need. Can we get someone on the quick?’ That’s obviously more difficult and it’s not always…if we can get to somebody, but we’re not sure who. It is a number of different ways and we’ve done every one of them at one point or another,” he said. 

Fans have seen the likes of Shinsuke Nakamura, The OC (Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson), Rhea Ripley, Drew Gulak, R-Truth, and more make surprise appearances on NXT television throughout 2022. 

Fans can check out the current lineup for NXT Deadline by clicking here. Fightful will have live coverage of the event beginning at 8 p.m. ET on Saturday. 

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