NXT Advent Calendar Day 23: The future is bright for NXT

While NXT is always in flux thanks to the nature of WWE call ups, it is also a promotion that is now frequently bringing in great independent talent to heighten the action. While folks like Finn Balor, Kevin Owens and Apollo Crews have made huge impacts in the last year, the company still has more hires waiting to make their debut.

Rich Swann still doesn't have a WWE ring name, but he's easily the most accomplished of WWE's non-televised talent. A regular in Dragon Gate USA, EVOLVE and CZW, he made a name for himself both for his amazing high flying style but also for his love for fun and a bit of humor. I've got two great matches featuring him below, the first against unsigned NXT talent Johnny Gargano and the other against three other future WWE/NXT talents: Sami Callihan (formerly Solomon Crowe), Luke Harper and Neville.




Athena was one of the top female stars on the indies, wrestling both men and women and finishing them with the incredible to watch O-Face, a top rope diving corkscrew stunner. Here she is in a battle with indie superstar Mia Yim, otherwise known as TNA's Jade. Now signed and working live events under a variation of her real name Adrien Reese, I would expect her to get a new name before she debuts.


Biff Busick was signed with Swann and Athena, and has also made his live event debut under his real name. A regular in both EVOLVE and CZW, his highly technical style brought him the most recognition in PWG. He even made the painful acquaintance of a woman that made her WWE debut at this year's Wrestlemania, one Ronda Rousey.


PWG has fun pretending they don't know their famous fan, but Busick was a guy that could be serious in the ring. Take a look at this technical classic against current EVOLVE champion Timothy Thatcher, from another Busick regular stop, the Beyond Wrestling promotion.


With all three of these stars likely to make their television debut in the next few months, I suspect 2016 will only continue NXT's rise as the best pro wrestling brand in the world today.

NXT Advent Calendar Day 4: Sasha Banks wrestles.. her boyfriend?

Before Sasha Banks was the internet's favorite female wrestler, she was simply Mercedes KV. She worked all over the northeast for a couple years from a very young age before her signing with WWE in 2012 at the age of just 20.

Sasha Banks with fiance Mikaze. Image credit: uproxx.com.

But one of her most interesting pre-NXT battles came in Beyond Wrestling, a brand known for intergender wrestling. I know very little about two of her opponents: Fury and Fahrenheit, but the fourth individual in the match is none other than Mikaze. Some fans might know Mikaze as WWE's official costume maker, but he also happens to be Sasha's fiance and a wrestler. Earlier this year, an NXT tryout match with him went very wrong and left him injured, but before that he was working on the indies including in this match with a very young Sasha.

Now I have no idea if the two were dating at the time or not, but it is an interesting footnote in the career of perhaps the best female wrestler in the world today.