Shawn Michaels On Why NXT Halloween Havoc Women’s Title Match Had A Cinematic Portion, Says They Won’t Do It A Lo

The NXT Women’s Title Match at NXT Halloween Havoc had a cinematic portion of it, and Shawn Michaels discussed why they went that route. The start of the Mandy Rose vs. Alba Fyre match took place in a haunted house and saw Fyre drive off with Rose, eventually making their way to the arena for the live component and Michaels talked about the reasoning behind that, why it the format won’t be used too often and more during the post-show media call. You can check out some highlights below, per Fightful:

On the cinematic part of the NXT Women’s Title match: “That’s one of those situations where, the team here, our creative team, and the studio guys in Stamford do an absolutely fantastic job. That’s people starting at about 8 at night and going until 3:45 in the morning. Mandy, Alba, Jacy, Gigi and about 20 other people working their tails off in the middle of the night. It is different than anything I’ve ever done, but Halloween Havoc…that’s not something I see us doing a lot, but at Halloween Havoc, it feels like it works. Everybody understands we do that to a certain point and the rest comes into the building.

“I don’t think that’s something we would do on a regular basis by any chance, but when you have a thematic show like Halloween Havoc, and we’ve done them in the past, it feels like it’s been an NXT thing with Halloween Havoc and we wanted to continue with that idea. It seemed to be the perfect match to do it with.”

On how he’d perform in a cinematic bout: “From my standpoint, I would find them difficult because I’m from a performing standpoint, in the moment. To have to take a totally separate night and go out there and get myself to where I’m supposed to be on Saturday…the few bad movies I’ve done, I found that to be very challenging. That’s what was so interesting about that, being able to turn that on and off without the crowd out there. I’m always very impressed when the talent can pull that off as well as the ladies did.”