Shawn Michaels Says Expectations for NXT’s Velveteen Dream ‘Cannot Be Bigger’

For the first time in his WWE career, Velveteen Dream will enter an NXT TakeOver event as a reigning champion when he defends the NXT North American Championship against Matt Riddle at NXT TakeOver: New York on Friday night. The former Tough Enough opponent has been a rising star on WWE’s developmental brand ever since he first debuted the Prince-inspired gimmick in May 2017, and earned incredibly high praise from WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels during the Halftime Heat event in February when he said comparisons between The Heartbreak Kid and The Dream would only lower the latter’s ceiling.

In a recent interview with Comicbook.com, Michaels revealed just how far he thinks the 23-year-old can go in the WWE.

“Absolutely anywhere he wants it to be,” Michaels said. “There’s a couple of guys that I’m fortunate to get to work with, but I guess it’s just because he’s so young and has so much natural ability, and at such a young age, is so comfortable in absolutely every aspect of the job, you just got to believe that … if he were to just grow at the exact same pace as everyone else, at this point, being so young and as talented as he is, I just don’t see how the expectations for him cannot be bigger than certainly anything I’ve ever seen.

“I’m a fan of most of my guys, but every once in awhile, when you put all that talent in the body of a … gosh, I can’t even remember what it was like to be 23 anymore, and to see the very natural ability and the ease at which he does it,” Michaels continued. “There is stuff that that young man can do that I don’t even think he’s found yet, only because he hasn’t seen it. There isn’t anything that he can’t do, because I would imagine he doesn’t see why he couldn’t do it. I do like to think there’s something special in that young man.”

Michaels also went into detail about how effortlessly Dream is able to connect with the fans.

“It’s the ease at which he does everything,” Michaels said. “There isn’t anything that doesn’t naturally flow through him. Nothing is of effort, and I think he really has the ability to stay in that moment. And it’s one of the things that we all, with my class in general, that we talk about a lot, is there’s a difference between going out and playing the role and being something while you’re out there.”

NXT TakeOver: New York will air live on the WWE Network from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn starting at 7 p.m. ET.

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