Over the weekend it was reported by Bryan Alvarez of F4WOnline.com that WWE NXT “is going to allow talent to work select indies going forward” before Booker T’s Reality of Wrestling promotion announced that NXT’s Ivy Nile is slated to work the ROW show on February 11th.
Shawn Michaels stated during the WWE NXT Vengeance Day post-show media call that it’s a one-time deal and he’s unaware of any other bookings.
It was later clarified that, for now, it’s a one-time deal. WWE has talked with other indie promotions aside from ROW about using NXT talent on the independent scene, but they want to take a wait-and-see approach with the Nile booking before moving forward with other bookings.
Booker T addressed this on the latest edition of his ‘Hall of Fame’ podcast.
“This is gonna be like a double main event show (for Reality of Wrestling) because everybody know, it’s all over the internet, Ivy Nile will be making her way inside the Reality of Wrestling World Gym Arena and she’ll be taking on truly, truly the next — and I’m talking about the next Roxanne Perez and we talking about Promise Braxton. Stone cold killer, you know what I mean? That’s gonna put that scope on you, right on your chest and ba, ba, ba, ba-bing! Like Patterson used to say. That match is gonna be something special and for me to be able to give this opportunity to a young Promise Braxton who has worked so hard at Reality of Wrestling over these last what? Two or three years?… Three years and know she’s gonna be on her A-game. I know she’s gonna go out there and she’s gonna bring the noise but for me to work with the next generation, the future talent at WWE as well, you know what I mean? In an Ivy Nile. That’s my passion. That’s where I do my best work I think, working with young people and trying to guide them along this journey that I love so much and I’m still living my best life right now. I’m totally content where I am right now and so for me to see something like this come together is so awesome and I appreciate Shawn Michaels and the WWE for giving me this opportunity to let one of my young talent in Reality of Wrestling shine because I hope to see her in the WWE one day.”
Booker T continued by noting, “The thing is, there again, like I said, you try to do something good and immediately, we posted that Ivy Nile was gonna be coming to Reality of Wrestling and we were gonna be giving the wrestling world, the independent wrestling world a match that they can’t see anywhere else between Ivy and Promise Braxton, that’s what we’re talking about, and then immediately after we post that, stories start just popping up on the internet pretty much saying that Reality of Wrestling, in quotations, ‘Reality of Wrestling is partnering with the WWE’ and that right there, for me, if you get that as a journalist from someone in the WWE, okay, fine. But if you see a print, an advertisement of someone being at a show and then you formulate your own thought and create your own story, that’s when the embellishment becomes something totally different. That’s when the embellishment becomes blatant, outright lying, okay? And I’m just being frank here.”
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