It’s always a grand occasion when Cody Rhodes makes his way to WWE NXT, and tonight’s NXT was no exception. The Undisputed WWE Champion shared an entertaining segment with NXT Champion Trick Williams and even revealed some big news for the NXT crowd, but he wasn’t quite done. Later in the show, Rhodes was walking backstage and had an unexpected AEW reunion when he ran into Shawn Spears. Spears and Rhodes would talk for a quick second before Ethan Page walked up and joined the conversation, and before they could finish Lexis King jumped into the group, bringing four former AEW stars together on WWE Television for the first time. Later they even recreated the famous Spider-Man meme, and you a catch both moments below.
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The segment began with Rhodes walking with his Undisputed WWE Championship. That’s when he ran into Spears, who had some words for the Champion. Spears told Rhodes, “You won the Royal Rumble and you got yours. Next week in the battle royal, I get mine.” Spears is referring to the 25-Man Battle Royal that will reveal Trick Williams’ next Title challenger, and Rhodes replies, “I believe it.”
That’s when Page walked up, saying, “Whoa whoa whoa, I’m in this thing next week too. You don’t want to wish me good luck Cody?” Rhodes didn’t get a chance to respond to Page though, as Lexis King walked into the picture with a proclamation of his own. “The King is gonna win the battle royal,” King said.
Rhodes took a second and reached his hand out and said, “It seems like…you guys are… in a good place.” Spears and Page looked at each other suspiciously while King laughed and smiled, and all three revealed they would be in the Battle Royal, so they will have to face each other to get one big step closer to Championship gold. This was followed by a later photo that all four took together, recreating the Spider-Man meme where they are all pointing at each other. You can find that image above.
Rhodes was the first person to make the jump from AEW to WWE, making his grand return at WrestleMania 38. That journey has been full of highs and lows as he looked to finish his story, and he would come close at WrestleMania 39, but fell short thanks to the combined efforts of Roman Reigns and The Bloodline. That led us to WrestleMania 40, where he was faced with even bigger odds thanks to the return of The Rock, but thanks to some help from Seth Rollins, Jey Uso, John Cena, and The Undertaker, Rhodes was finally able to overcome the group’s cheating ways and become the Undisputed WWE Champion.
Since then we’ve had several stars come to WWE from AEW, including King, Jade Cargill, Spears, and most recently Page, who shocked everyone by showing up a few weeks ago and attacking Trick Williams. He would finally sign with NXT and get a Title match at Battleground, though his ego got in the way, allowing Williams to retain his NXT Championship.
Of the three, King has been in NXT the longest, debuting at Halloween Havoc and becoming one of the brand’s biggest villains in the process. Like Page, Spears was a surprise reveal at the end of an episode of NXT, and has started to leave his mark as a heel on the NXT roster.
What did you think of the AEW reunion? You can talk all things wrestling with me on Threads and Twitter @mattaguilarcb!
