Shane Haste looks back on his tag team run in NXT with Mikey Nicholls.
At NJPW STRONG Style Evolved, TMDK (Shane Haste & JONAH) are reuniting to take on FinJuice (David Finlay & Juice Robinson). The Might Don’t Kneel stable consists of Haste, JONAH, Mikey Nicholls, Slex, Marcius Pitt and also representing the group is NXT’s Duke Hudson.
The Mighty’s primary traditional tag team was Shane Haste and Mikey Nicholls, who were known in WWE as TM-61. They spent several years with WWE before Mikey opted to leave and Shane stayed until his release in November 2021.
Haste was a guest on ‘Your Story with Mike Wexler’ and while recapping his career in WWE, he mentioned that talents in NXT were hesitant to take TM-61’s ‘Thunder Valley’ finisher, which saw both Haste and Nicholls gorilla press their opponent and slamming them onto their back.
No one wanted to take the finish [Thunder Valley] and I’m like, f*cking easy. It’s not that big of a bump. No one in Japan ever complained about it, so I’m like… I get it. I think I took it once and… or at least someone picked me up once and I was like, ‘Oh sh*t. This is high.’ One of the — I think the first person we ever hit it on was [Katsuhiko] Nakajima and he’s like — we picked him up and his hands couldn’t actually reach our shoulders when we’re fully extended and he’s like — yeah, you have no control up there. It’s all us. So I get it, but wrestling rings are fine now [Haste laughed].
Haste was interviewed by POST Wrestling. The written version can be found here and the video version is on the Andrew Thompson Interviews YouTube channel.
Shane made his return to New Japan Pro-Wrestling at the STRONG Rivals taping in California. He officially became a free agent in February.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit ‘Your Story with Mike Wexler’ with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
