How This AEW Star Was Nearly A Wyatt Family Member

Matelson was just another faceless trainee when he joined WWE in 2012, and it was a creative lifetime away from the era in which a wrestler could get away with the gimmick that's gotten him over now.

Signing with Vince McMahon shortly before the Performance Center and NXT became the proving ground for new and established talent alike, the newly-christened Judas Devlin ploughed away in Florida Championship Wrestling with countless others that must have felt saved by a spiritual entity when the empty warehouses were replaced by a state-of-the-art gym and Full Sail University.

The early days of NXT can still be broadly traced to the product of today - no mean feat considering the seven-year gap - with a number of gimmicks and stories getting breathing room in front of generous and kind crowds. The lack of TakeOvers before the advent of the Network took some much-needed structure away, but if things didn't take, they were simply dropped.

What may sound cruel was in fact extremely kind - the audience were as willing to forget the missteps as quickly as the performers themselves.

Windham Rotunda's remarkable rebirth proved the system fruitful early doors. Husky Harris was a dead brand from a dying main roster run, but Bray Wyatt was a fascinating left turn for him in the new NXT. His acolyte brothers/cousins/sons/followers Erick Rowan and Luke Harper augmented the look as Braun Strowman would years later.

Stood by waiting for his opportunity, a future wrestling monster was almost required to portray an entirely different animal...

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