Former IWGP Heavyweight Champion EVIL Debuts On WWE NXT, Confronts NXT Champion Tony D’Angelo

Published: 1 hour ago by Connel Rumsey | Last Updated: 1 hour ago by Connel Rumsey

Connel has over five years of wrestling journalism experience writing about some of the biggest stories from across the wrestling world. Being a fan for 20 years, Connel has an expansive knowledge from a wide range of various wrestling promotions, including WWE, AEW, NJPW, TNA and Joshi.

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Former IWGP Heavyweight Champion EVIL Debuts On WWE NXT, Confronts NXT Champion Tony D’Angelo

Former IWGP Heavyweight Champion EVIL made his WWE debut on tonight’s episode of WWE NXT on the CW Network.

It was recently reported that former New Japan Pro Wrestling star EVIL had officially signed with WWE after wrapping up with NJPW back in February.

Those in Japan noted that they didn’t expect EVIL to keep his EVIL ring name in WWE, and he has now made his presence felt.

EVIL Makes WWE Debut On NXT

Last week on WWE NXT, NXT Champion Tony D’Angelo was gifted a box that featured the Japanese Kanji for ‘War’ on it, sent as a warning from an unknown sender.

On tonight’s show, Tony came to the ring to address the box, before he was interrupted by EVIL in his debut appearance, who simply handed D’Angelo a shirt with the symbol on it before leaving.

EVIL was not referenced by any name on the broadcast, simply as ‘the former IWGP Heavyweight Champion’.

WWE NXT Call-Ups Happening Faster Going Forward

Until the past few weeks and months, a lot was made about talent spending a lot more time in NXT – sometimes even ‘too long’ – as opposed to being called up to the WWE main roster.

Nick Khan himself pointed out recently that last year, he, Triple H and Shawn Michaels all spoke about why talent development seemed to be taking longer, with Michaels pointing to the lack of NXT live events on the road meaning there was less chance for talent to figure out what was connecting with audiences other than just the usual Performance Center crowd.

Khan then said that once more live events were introduced last year, names like Trick Williams, Oba Femi and Je’Von Evans were called up, and of course there have now been a whole host of names moving up since then, with the two champions Tony D’Angelo and Lola Vice really the only top tier names left in NXT at this point.

WWE management being aware of the issue with the slow main roster call-ups, and quickly responding to that issue after speaking with Shawn Michaels, seems to show a desire to move talent up to Raw and SmackDown going forward.

It might not be too long before the next tier of talent – the likes of Myles Borne, Tatum Paxley, Shiloh Hill and Zaria – make it to the main roster as opposed to waiting another whole year or longer.