Starting at WWE NXT’s Halloween Havoc, NXT has been teasing an anticipated return to the NXT fold, with the very first teaser featuring the burning of a mask. That was identified as the mask of former Retribution member T-Bar, and as promised he has left that character in the dust. The former Dominik Dijakovic would make his long-awaited return to NXT tonight after Wes Lee successfully retained his North American Championship against Carmelo Hayes, and he appeared behind Lee and hit him with a knee to the face. The man now known as simply Dijak has a justice theme these days, as highlighted on commentary and in his entrance, and you can find his full return in the video below.
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It seems he will be in the North American Championship mix, at least in the near future, and so we should get some great matches between Lee and Dijak down the line. At the media conference after Halloween Havoc, Shawn Michaels was asked about the tease and talked about how Dijak’s return to NXT came to fruition, though at the time Michaels didn’t outright confirm who the tease was 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.”
“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.”
What did you think of Dijak’s return? Let us know in the comments or as always you can talk all things wrestling with me on Twitter @MattAguilarCB!
