Adam Cole looks back at the black-and-gold era of WWE NXT fondly.
The white hot AEW star spoke with the folks from Under The Ring for an interview this week, during which he reflected on his time in WWE NXT during the black-and-gold era of the brand.
“I certainly hope history looks back on [the Black and Gold era] as a special one,” Cole said. “I felt like we were in the middle of something very, very special. As far as what made it work, I think it was a combination of the timing being really right, I think you had Triple H, who was eating, sleeping, and breathing NXT at the time and a totally invested Shawn Michaels, the same thing. You had a roster full of guys who had known each other for years and just were ready to commit everything to making this the best show we possibly could.”
Cole would elaborate, explaining how important the fans commitment to NXT was at that time.
“I think for fans as well, even though NXT had already started this trend before I had gotten there and before the black and gold era per say, but you could see the fans with these early Takeovers with Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn and Finn Balor and Shinsuke Nakamura, you could feel the brand growing and you could feel more and more people joining this ride that was NXT black and gold,” he said. “I think for a lot of people, it was the first time that they had seen that style of wrestling truth be told. Obviously there were people that had followed a lot of us on the independents before then, but then you had some people that hadn’t seen that sort of style and are seeing it for the first time through WWE’s eyes in these huge arenas and it just created this movement that was absolutely unbelievable.”
Check out the complete interview at Spotify.com. H/T to Fightful.com for transcribing the above quotes.
