Adam Cole reflects on the black and gold era of NXT.
For a lengthy period of time in the 2010's, many fans considered WWE's NXT show to be one of the best weekly shows in all of professional wrestling. At the time, the brand bolstered stars like Adam Cole, Ricochet, Malakai Black, Johnny Gargano, and Tommaso Ciampa.
In a new interview with the Under The Ring podcast, Cole said that he hopes history looks back on the brand in a good way.
“I certainly hope history looks back on [the Black and Gold era] as a special one. I felt like we were in the middle of something very, very special. As far as what made it work, I think it was a combination of the timing being really right, I think you had Triple H, who was eating, sleeping, and breathing NXT at the time and a totally invested Shawn Michaels, the same thing. You had a roster full of guys who had known each other for years and just were ready to commit everything to making this the best show we possibly could. I think for fans as well, even though NXT had already started this trend before I had gotten there and before the black and gold era per say, but you could see the fans with these early Takeovers with Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn and Finn Balor and Shinsuke Nakamura, you could feel the brand growing and you could feel more and more people joining this ride that was NXT black and gold. I think for a lot of people, it was the first time that they had seen that style of wrestling truth be told. Obviously there were people that had followed a lot of us on the independents before then, but then you had some people that hadn’t seen that sort of style and are seeing it for the first time through WWE’s eyes in these huge arenas and it just created this movement that was absolutely unbelievable.”
Cole departed from WWE in the summer of 2021 after spending five years with the company. Weeks later, Cole debuted for All Elite Wrestling at the 2021 All Out pay-per-view.
Elsewhere in the interview, Cole talked about his current relationship with Roderick Strong. Fans can learn more by clicking here.
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