This past week’s Friday Night SmackDown saw three NXT stars arrive on the Blue Brand. Toni Storm had a vignette teasing her main roster call-up, while Tegan Nox and Shotzi Blackheart had a surprise tag team match against Natalya and Tamina (and won). Fans noticed during the show that the two were listed as Nox and Shotzi, and WWE.com now has Blackheart listed only as Shotzi. The same change has not been made for Nox.
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It’s also not clear if Nox will get the chance to finish up her storyline on NXT now that she’s receiving a call-up. The Welsh returned to the Black & Gold Brand after a ten-month absence last week and cost Candice LeRae and Indi Hartwell the NXT Women’s Tag Team Championships. Nox suffered a torn ACL last September and the show wrote LeRae as the one who caused the injury.
LOL OOOPS! https://t.co/6HPe8uhXic
โ Tegan Nox ๐ด๓ ง๓ ข๓ ท๓ ฌ๓ ณ๓ ฟ (@TeganNoxWWE_) July 8, 2021
WHAT. A. DEBUT.@ShotziWWE & @TeganNoxWWE_ absolutely DOMINATED their first #SmackDown Tag Team pic.twitter.com/zeVVMTm5Lr
โ WWE UK (@WWEUK) July 11, 2021
Looks like wwe has taken off Blackheart from Shotziโs name pic.twitter.com/7yerAsw8tj
โ matt nazario๐ต๐ท๐ช๐จ (@mattnazar50) July 13, 2021
Shotzi now joins the long list of wrestlers who have lost either their first or last name after being called up to the main roster. She signed with WWE in October 2019 and during her time on NXT she held the NXT Women’s tag titles alongside Ember Moon for nearly two months.
“I know, it’s wild. I still can’t believe it myself. The drive home after that show, I was like, ‘This is real, right? I’m not dreaming,” Blackheart told ComicBook days after winning the tag titles.
As for Nox, the “Girl with the Shiniest Wizard” has had her momentum in NXT halted several times due to multiple ACL tears. She explained in an interview with ComicBook that she doesn’t want those injuries to define her.
“I was pretty fed up with it as soon as it started,” Nox said. “I understand that my knees are a part of my story, they’re a part of me. It’s part of my legacy, I guess, but I think the thing that irritates me most is that people try to use my knees as a weakness against me. They say that my knees are weak, that they are just going to explode, that my career is not going to be a long one, and all this negative stuff, which honestly doesn’t really get to me that much. At the start, it did, when I was going through my rough patch, but now that I’m happy in my career and my life, it’s like water off a duck’s back. It doesn’t bother me anymore.”
