Following the Halloween Havoc event, Shawn Michaels discussed the NXT brand’s decision to hold cinematic matches.
At Halloween Havoc, the Mandy Rose vs. Alba Fyre NXT Women’s Championship Match was split into two halves.
In the first segment, Rose was joined by the Toxic Attraction actors Gigi Dolin and Jacy Jayne and they were attacked by Fyre and a group of spooky characters in a haunted house. It eventually led to Rose beating Fyre in a normal match to retain her title.
Speaking on the Halloween Havoc post show media call, Shawn Michaels addressed doing cinematic matches:
“That’s one of those situations where, the team here, our creative team, and the studio guys in Stamford do an absolutely fantastic job. That’s people starting at about 8 at night and going until 3:45 in the morning. Mandy, Alba, Jacy, Gigi and about 20 other people working their tails off in the middle of the night. It is different than anything I’ve ever done, but Halloween Havoc…that’s not something I see us doing a lot, but at Halloween Havoc, it feels like it works. Everybody understands we do that to a certain point and the rest comes into the building. I don’t think that’s something we would do on a regular basis by any chance, but when you have a thematic show like Halloween Havoc, and we’ve done them in the past, it feels like it’s been an NXT thing with Halloween Havoc and we wanted to continue with that idea. It seemed to be the perfect match to do it with.”
“From my standpoint, I would find them difficult because I’m from a performing standpoint, in the moment. To have to take a totally separate night and go out there and get myself to where I’m supposed to be on Saturday…the few bad movies I’ve done, I found that to be very challenging. That’s what was so interesting about that, being able to turn that on and off without the crowd out there. I’m always very impressed when the talent can pull that off as well as the ladies did.”
Transcription via Fightful