Tony D’Angelo recently shared an interesting behind-the-scenes story about what could have been during his early days in WWE NXT.
Including original plans for him to team up with Bron Breakker.
While appearing on the No-Contest Wrestling podcast, D’Angelo revealed that WWE initially had ideas for the two to work together as a tag team when they first arrived in NXT.
The concept, he explained, was loosely inspired by a classic powerhouse duo.
“When we first got in, me and Bron were in a tag together. So we were doing that for a minute. Not on TV, but they were priming us, ‘This is what you’re gonna do,’ kinda like the new age Steiner Brothers type of deal. I was (wearing a singlet), but I was wearing a singlet before that anyway, so that wasn’t foreign.”
However, those plans changed once the NXT 2.0 era began and the brand underwent a reset behind the scenes.
According to D’Angelo, he learned pretty quickly that the direction had shifted.
“I just remember one day, Road Dogg came up and he was like, ‘Hey man, we’re not doing this,’ and this is right when 2.0 first kicked off, they kinda just, ‘Clean slate, everybody, we kinda have a lane for you,’ and I had to figure out quick what I was gonna do,” D’Angelo continued.
That turning point ended up helping D’Angelo discover the character and style that fans would eventually see on television.
“So in one of the in-house matches, I just turned it on, and they were like, ‘Whoa, where did that come from?’ And then they were like, ‘Yep, we’re running with this, this is it.‘”
