The Mighty Don’t Kneel on Making the WWE Journey Together, New Goals, What Fans Can Expect from Them
– New WWE Performance Center recruits Michael Nicholls and Shane Veryzer, known to fans as The Mighty Don’t Kneel, recently spoke with the WWE website about signing with the company. Nicholls said the two are ready to start a tag team revolution in WWE. The full Q&A is at this link. Below are highlights:
WWE.COM: You have spent much of your careers together. When did you begin teaming with each other, and how has it affected your development as Superstars, and as a tag team, to take the journey to WWE together?
NICHOLLS: We started teaming in 2009, back in Australia. We had both been trying to do singles stuff for a while and that plateaued, so we came together to see what we could do as a team. I think we’re a much more valuable asset as a team, and also much more fun, because we’re friends. That Shane has gone through all the same things I’ve gone through, all the rough times and the hard training in Japan, helped us grow as a team. I think it’s only benefited us to be a team as opposed to singles guys.
VERYZER: When we started as singles wrestlers, a lot of the times it was a feeling of loneliness, of needing someone to vent to and bounce ideas off. So we thought, let’s give it a crack together, let’s start at the bottom and work our way up. It’s worked out very well, and we’re here now because of it. It’s very much because of our collective as a team. In Japan, we know a lot of people who went there by themselves and the language barrier was very miserable, but we always had each other to talk to. You’ve always got a spot in the gym, too [laughs]. We get along pretty well, don’t we, Mikey?
WWE.COM: Now that you’re at the WWE Performance Center, what goals have you set for yourselves?
NICHOLLS: Obviously, the end goal is the NXT Tag Team Titles. For now, that’s the be-all and end-all of why we’re here. But the best part of that is the process to get there involves such great coaching staff, and the Performance Center equipment and the whole atmosphere around you. I’m looking forward to and making the most of what we’ve got here.
VERYZER: Everywhere we’ve gone, we’ve started at the bottom. We started in Australia at the bottom, started in Japan at the bottom and we’re coming here as fresh faces. We know what we’ve done before here does matter, but in another sense, it doesn’t. So, we have to start at the bottom and work our way up. Like Mikey said, the tag titles are our goal, but our ultimate goal is to main event a TakeOver for the NXT Tag Team Titles. We want to be in the first tag title main event, and if we’ve got to take a while to get there, then so be it. We want to bring tag team wrestling up and make it what it should be.
WWE.COM: For fans that have never seen you, what can they expect?
NICHOLLS: We’re a little bit old school, a little bit new school. We’re serious, we’re dumb [laughs]. Me and Shane bring out the best in each other, but we also tend to bring out the worst in each other.
VERYZER: We’re not a tag team that’s buddy-buddy all the time. You know a lot of tag teams are like brothers. We’re even more like brothers in the way that we fight a lot. We’re not always on the same page, but we understand where we want to go.