Adam Cole reflects on the Black and Gold era of NXT.
The triple-crown NXT Champion spoke about his former brand during a recent interview with Under The Ring. Cole is referring to the 2014-2019 period of NXT when their roster featured names like Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens, Shinsuke Nakamura, Robert Roode, Drew McIntyre, the Undisputed Era, Samoa Joe, and a number of other top stars. He believes this era was very special and credits Triple H for being fully committed to the brand at that time.
I certainly hope history looks back on [the Black and Gold era] as a special one. 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 later discusses how important the fans commitment to NXT was at the 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. 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.
Elsewhere in the interview, Cole spoke about his pairing with MJF in AEW and how their chemistry has created the promotion’s most compelling storyline heading into All In. You can read about that here.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)