Shawn Michaels Addresses Halloween Havoc Tease of WWE Superstar's Return to NXT

By Matthew Aguilar

WWE NXT had several surprises up its sleeve during tonight's Halloween Havoc, and amongst those surprises was the tease of a big NXT return. During tonight's event, there was a shot of a mask on fire, and the mask seems to be the former mask of WWE Raw Superstar T-Bar. Longtime NXT fans are celebrating too, as before T-Bar and Retribution came to be, T-Bar was known as Dominik Dijakovic, and quickly became a favorite in NXT in numerous matches against Keith Lee. Now it seems he is not only returning to NXT but is also returning to his old persona, and in the after-show media call, Shawn Michaels addressed the tease after a question from Sean Ross Sapp, pretty much confirming it is Dijakovic and revealing how the return came about.

"Excited! So that's a, that's one of the things...it's not like we don't see what goes on out there in the social media world and the shaking of the fist at different things that were done with different characters over the years," Michaels said. "And we do what we can here creatively to kind of nudge nudge wink wink, we see you and we hear you. I would love to be able to take credit for that but I've got a pretty good head writer here that comes up with some pretty snazzy stuff in Johnny Russo. Gonna put you over here Johnny! But look that was just something he mentioned, just a quick tease and I thought that's fantastic."

Before Retribution, Dijakovic was often in the North American Championship scene and then in the NXT Championship scene during the time Keith Lee was in NXT, and the two had some stellar matches in the ring, though Lee would often come out on top. It was thought that Dijakovic would eventually move forward in NXT, but then Retribution happened. Dijakovic was one of five NXT stars pulled to Raw to form the Retribution faction, but after a hyped-up debut and another big move with the reveal of Mustafa Ali being the leader, the group just kept losing and quickly fizzled out, and then some were just stuck with those characters for a while.

"I mean I guess we've already given a bunch away but, when you get a talent that 1 is very talented, and we felt like was just coming into his own in NXT prior, and then from our perspective, again the pandemic happened and there were a lot of quick changes and we lost a lot of people," Michaels said. "And then over time they found out 'okay well, we're not maybe sure how we're going to finish the story they're in. And anytime they are willing to allow us to have the opportunity to have them back, we look at it, and I don't mean it in a bad way, but we find that as like a fun new toy."

"I mean to take guys with that much talent, and I think one of the things that we certainly try to do here or certainly try to do as much in the future, is try and not to insult the fans and not pretend like somebody wasn't who they were a short time ago," Michaels said. "But just sort of connect the dots. Get you thinking, teasing it, and making you feel like what's going to happen, and then obviously down the road we surprise you and you think that it's cool when it works."

Are you excited for the return of Dominik Dijakovic? Let us know in the comments or as always you can talk all things wrestling with me on Twitter @MattAguilarCB!

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