Shane Haste Recalls TM-61 Being Left Off WWE’s Australia Tour Because They Weren’t Big Enough Stars

Shane Haste (formerly Shane Thorne and SLAPJACK in WWE) recalls the reason he and Mikey Nicholls were left off of WWE’s Australia Tour.

In March 2016, Haste and Nicholls were signed by WWE and came members of the NXT roster. They were promptly rebranded as Shane Thorne and Nick Miller, respectively, while their team name of The Mighty Don’t Kneel was changed to TM-61.

Less than two years later in December 2018, Nicholls asked for and was granted his release from the company. Haste, however, remained with WWE until his release in November 2021.

Speaking with Andrew Thompson of POST Wrestling, Haste says he understood why he and Nicholls were not included on the October 6, 2018, Super Show-Down event at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. That said, he didn’t understand why they were not included on the Australian Tour in 2017, sharing WWE’s reasoning for their omission.

“Well this is the thing: My mom would always say stuff like that. ‘Well why don’t they bring the Australians to it?’ And I’m like, well, let’s say — what’s a big band at the moment? What’s the biggest band? BTS, let’s say BTS toured Australia. Do you think just because they’re coming to Australia, they should add an Australian singer to it? No. You wanna see — you wanna see the stars that you see on TV. You wanna see those big names and it’s a treat to see the Americans, the people from all around the other parts of the world, but, in saying that too, Australians are very proud and patriotic people as well so they do wanna see their own people and I can’t remember which Australia tour it was; I’m like, ‘How are we not on this?’ And they said, ‘You’re not big enough stars.’ I’m like, ‘Well you control that. Make us bigger stars.’ You see how quickly they can turn someone into a star. It takes a couple of weeks. You control this. You write it. Write us to be bigger stars,” he said.

TM-61 did participate in the 2016 NXT Live: Australia Tour, winning 5 of the 6 matches they had.

Haste recently shared the reason he stayed with WWE when his tag team partner decided to leave. Click here to read more.

NJPW recently announced that Haste will team with JONAH at the March 20 Strong Style Evolved event. Click here to learn more.