WALTER, Riddle & AJ Styles Set For WWE NXT New Year's Evil

Three major names set for new week's New Year's Evil special.

by Andrew Pollard
AJ Styles Grayson Waller WWE NXT New Year's Evil
WWE.com

As soon on last night's NXT broadcast, next week's big New Year's Evil special will feature appearances from WALTER, Riddle and AJ Styles.

In the cast of WALTER and Riddle, they'll be on opposing sides in a six-man bout pitting WALTER and his Imperium buddies up against the Original Bro and MSK.

Originally, Riddle was advertised to make an appearance with MSK on last night's show, but that appearance ultimately ended up happening via video. With the current Raw Tag Team Champion pushing MSK to get a shot at Marcel Barthel and Fabian Aichner's NXT Tag Titles, Riddle was interrupted (via video) by a WALTER who mocked MSK as being everything that's wrong with professional wrestling.

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From there, we eventually got to next week's six-man contest - which will be the Ring General's first televised WWE match since losing the NXT UK Championship to Ilja Dragunov back at NXT TakeOver 36 in August.

As for AJ Styles, he likewise appeared via video, stating how Grayson Waller had caught his attention and that the Phenomenal One would be confronting Waller at New Year's Evil. It's worth noting that this was not announced as being any sort of formal match, although one has to imagine they'll be at least some physicality between the pair next week just, well, because that's how these things always go.

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Elsewhere, New Year's Evil will also feature Tommaso Ciampa defending the NXT Title against Bron Breakker, Cora Jade and Raquel Gonzalez challenging for Mandy Rose's NXT Women's Title in a triple-threat bout, and a title unification contest between Cruiserweight Champion Roderick Strong and North American Champion Carmelo Hayes.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.