Pro-wrestling star Ariya Daivari recently joined the Straight Shooting podcast with host Matt Rehwolt to discuss his release from WWE, which included the former 205 Live talent sharing a story about how Vince McMahon didn’t want NXT guys in the main roster locker rooms due to COVID. Highlights are below.
Says 205 Live got moved back to NXT because of multiple COVID outbreaks:
The whole reason 205 Live got moved back to NXT is because NXT was having a little bit of a COVID issue compared to the main roster. A handful of guys were getting coronavirus and this was around the time where nobody really knew exactly how serious this was. They are having a COVID issue in NXT and I believe someone on the main roster got infected. Word got out and it basically boiled down to, ‘NXT is giving main roster guys coronavirus.’ I forget who I was going to wrestle but we were going to do an episode of 205 Live at the ThunderDome and all of a sudden they came up to me and were like, ‘We’re changing the card. These three guys gotta go.’ They kicked some NXT guys out of the locker room and sent them home because this is when we were still in Orlando for the ThunderDome.
How Vince didn’t want any more NXT guys coming up until the outbreak was contained:
Me and Isaiah Scott had to do a 15-minute match on 20 minutes notice. He was wrestling someone else, I was wrestling someone else, both of our opponents got sent home, so we put this match together. After that, what I was told was Vince was like, ‘No more NXT guys on the main roster during the pandemic.’ Guys were just coming up to 205 Live. He said, ‘No more NXT guys in the locker room.’ I was told NXT was having too many cases of COVID and Vince didn’t want NXT guys in the SmackDown locker room because they might bring COVID.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful
)