WWE's New Class of Recruits Features The Mighty Don't Kneel & Nikki Storm!

With all the big name independent talent WWE has signed over the last few months like AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura, you'd be forgiven for missing some of the more low key signings WWE pulls off. For example, over half a year ago WWE signed the insanely talented Adrienne Reese, better known as Athena, but you might not have noticed because her signing was lumped in with the Tough Enough competitors getting signed. Well, yesterday WWE revealed their most recent Performance Center recruits on WWE.com. While most of them are new to wrestling or have little training, three of these names should be familiar to wrestling fans. Those three are Michael Nicholls, Shane Veryzer, and Nicola Glencross, better known by their ring names Mikey Nicholls, Shane Haste, and Nikki Storm, respectively.

Nicholls and Haste are best known for their work as the tag team The Mighty Don't Kneel (TMDK). TMDK were staples of the tag team division in Pro Wrestling Noah in Japan, holding the GHC Tag Team Championships twice. Along with that, the two have won several titles in their native Australia. The team held the tag team titles in both Melbourne City Wrestling and Explosive Professional Wrestling, while both have held the EPW Championship, with Nicholls winning it twice and Haste once. The team also won Tokyo Sports Best Tag Team Award in 2013 and won Ring of Honor's Rise and Prove Tournament in 2012.

Nikki Storm formerly competed on TNA's British Boot Camp, making it to the finals. She has wrestled for several top UK promotions, including Insane Championship Wrestling and Pro Wrestling EVE. She has also made it into the PWI Top 50 Females two years in a row, ranking #32 in 2014 and #39 in 2015. Hopefully she'll be a big addition to the women's division, which needs more talent outside of Asuka and Bayley.

Hopefully all these new recruits make a big impact in NXT in the coming years.

Thanks for reading. Be sure to share if you enjoyed. Also, check out my Patreon

Comments

Worst in the World: The Last Rites Match-TNA Destination X 2007

(Special thanks to an anonymous user for suggesting this match. If you'd like to see a match covered on the Worst in the World, leave a comment down below.) An often discussed aspect of professional wrestling is the backstage politicking of Hulk Hogan. Throughout his career as a major attraction in wrestling, Hogan's philosophy has always been to protect Hulk Hogan...OK, sometimes he'd help Ed Leslie, but most of the time it was to protect Hulk Hogan. Because of that philosophy and Hogan's influence as a top guy, there have been multiple instances where a company's booking and other wrestlers have suffered as a result. Would having Mr. Perfect win the 1990 Royal Rumble made sense and could have elevated a rising star and potentially created a new main event player? Yes, but that would require Hogan to not win, and that doesn't work for Hogan, so he wins the Rumble even though he doesn't need elevating. Would booking Randy Orton to beat Hogan at SummerSlam 20...

Worst in the World: The Miss WrestleMania Battle Royal-WrestleMania 25

Special thanks to Connor Ewens for suggesting this match. If you'd like to see a match covered on the Worst in the World, leave a comment down below. A little over two months ago at WrestleMania 37, we saw four different women's matches take place. All four matches had been built up on TV, and all four of them had some kind of stakes attached to them, whether that be a championship or a title shot. This might seem like an odd thing to praise. After all, a match with a story, stakes, and build is the bare minimum for wrestling in general, let alone matches at WrestleMania. However, when it comes to the women's division in WWE, that hasn't always been the case. And not even just in the Attitude Era, I'm talking about the early 2000s up until about 2016. I've ragged on the booking of women's wrestling during the Attitude Era (both in the WWF and WCW) more than a few times here, but I've rarely talked about the period after that and how, as a whole, it'...

Worst in the World: The Gimmick Battle Royal-WrestleMania X-Seven

(Special thanks to Frost for suggesting this match. If you'd like to see a match covered on the Worst in the World, leave a comment down below.) WrestleMania X-Seven. Heavily considered the not just the best WrestleMania, but the greatest wrestling show of all time, WrestleMania X-Seven took place during the hottest period in the WWF's history, and features just about every one of the hottest acts in wrestling at the time. An undercard featuring the likes of Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, William Regal, Kane, and the Big Show. One of the biggest female stars in the history of wrestling in Chyna. A killer TLC match between the Dudley Boyz, the Hardy Boyz, and Edge & Christian. A wild brawl between The Undertaker and Triple H. A massive main event between Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. Hell, even the father vs son Street Fight between Vince & Shane McMahon. It's a star-studded affair. However, there's one match that sticks out like...

Worst in the World: WrestleMania XV: The Ragin' Anticlimax

(Special thanks to an anonymous user for suggesting this post's idea. If you'd like to see a match covered on the Worst in the World, leave a comment down below.) 1999 was one of the most important years in the history of the then-World Wrestling Federation. After being thoroughly beaten in the ratings battle by WCW for nearly two years, the WWF had regained its footing mid-1998, and would head into '99 on a winning streak in the Monday Night Wars that would never end. At the same time, WCW had begun to fall apart, with the now infamous Fingerpoke of Doom being the first of many nails in the coffin of the company. With their main competitor going from a genuine threat to a distant second, the WWF was absolutely on fire. With that said, it's kind of surprising that, in one of the best years the company ever had, the WWF put on one of the worst WrestleManias of all time in WrestleMania XV. It feels weird to say that. After all, this is the show that featured the first Wre...

Worst in the World: Carmella vs Asuka: How to Destroy an Aura

Throughout the entire history of the WWE, we've never seen, and probably will never see again, a woman booked as strong as Asuka was to start her run. Coming into WWE in 2015 with over a decade of experience wrestling in her native Japan as Kana, Asuka was immediately treated like a huge deal. Hell, even from the first time we saw her on a WWE broadcast, she was seated in the crowd of NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn next to two Hall of Famers in Ric Flair & Sgt. Slaughter. Officially debuting in October 2015, Asuka would go her entire NXT career, nearly two full years, without being pinned or submitted. She was booked so strong, in fact, that instead of dropping the NXT Women's Championship in what would be her last match in NXT at the time to Ember Moon (even after sustaining an injury), an act that is almost always the case for champions leaving NXT for the main roster, Asuka retained and later vacated the title, keeping her streak intact. For a company that is more than willing t...

The Wrestling Section

Vote For the Next Editions of The Worst in the World & The 5 Star Series!

Search This Blog