Shawn Michaels Says NXT Stars Appearing in the Royal Rumble Is Up To Main Roster Creative

Fightful reports that during a media call for tonight’s WWE NXT Vengeance Day, Shawn Michaels spoke about NXT wrestlers appearing in the Royal Rumble and said that the decision is up to the main roster creative team.

He said: “Sometimes it matters a great deal, other times it doesn’t. I think they had a pretty good idea of who it was that they wanted this year. Obviously, they asked us our opinions, we certainly gave them, but for this year, it was a matter of who it was that they wanted, and then a couple of backups for alternates in case something were to happen. They only needed women. It was my understanding that they had plenty of the men. For us, it’s a great opportunity for NXT to have anybody up there. I’ll be honest, it’s always the main roster call as far as what it is. Anything that has to do with our talent going up there, it is more often than not a main roster call. When we’re looking for main roster folks to come down here, that’s me making a request and for the most part it usually being granted, other than there being conflicts in talent schedules. I have no way in how they determine how long people go in. I supposed if I wanted to be a pain in everybody’s backside and ask, I could find out that stuff. The Rumble is done in advance and they always have their idea of how they want it to go. Pure speculation on my part, they feel like, ‘let’s highlight a couple NXT talent. We can give them each a moment.’ I cannot honestly speak to having any information on how that is decided and how they decide to go about it.“