Shawn Michaels, Cesaro, William Regal & Tom Phillips Reflect on NXT’s Journey From Arrival to Now

The WWE Performance Center has shared a new video in celebration of last weekend’s NXT Takeover XXX looking at the brand’s journey from the first live event Arrival to now. You can see the video below, which features several producers and talent talking about the event as well as a few highlights:

Tom Phillips on calling the first NXT event: “One of the greatest honors of my entire career is the fact that I got to call NXT Arrival. I still can’t believe how that night all went down, considering that was the first live special event to air on the WWE Network. The Network was in its infancy, which was just amazing to me. And it just felt so much like a unified performance by everybody together, working as a team.”

Shawn Michaels on seeing the start of NXT: “I went from somebody that was a fan — let’s start at the beginning, when Hunter started all of this — and watching it just from the outside. The idea was to be everything that was awesome and fun about this line of work. You know, it had more about all the people that were a part of NXT were all the people that were passionate and hungry and young. And you know, and looking towards the future, and building that future.”

Cesaro on competing at the first Takeover: “It’s cool to be part of history, be part of the first NXT Takeover that kind of set the tone and launched NXT to what it is today. And to be part of that, it’s pretty awesome. And to see how far it came, who all went through NXT and who all competed at Takeover, and what they went on to do in WWE.”

William Regal on : “I thought, ‘This is going to be — NXT is going to be a success.’ It’s very easy for me to stand here and go ‘Oh yes, I [knew], you know. Because we’re here. And it is. But yes, because I know the people. Every drop of being that I have, I would give to NXT. And so would Triple H, and so would everybody that comes to work here. We would give everything to make sure that this works. And that’s how much this means to us.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit WWE with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.