Last night at Last Stand, the iPPV for Booker T‘s Reality of Wrestling promotion, NXT/WWE Performance Center trainee Brennan Williams returned to the company he started with for one night only, to compete at the event. Prior to signing with WWE, Williams performed at ROW under the name “The Shogun” Marcellus Black.
The 27-year old Massachusetts native is a former pro football player, a 3rd round draft pick of the NFL’s Houston Texans in the 2013 NFL Draft out of the University of North Carolina. He missed his entire rookie season with a knee injury and was released the following summer. He had two more shots, both on the practice roster, with Jacksonville Jaguars and New England Patriots, before finally retiring from football in 2015. He returned to Houston and began to train with WWE Hall of Famer Booker T, starting his career with Booker’s own Houston-based company, ROW. Brennan Williams made his ROW debut in early 2016, but it didn’t take long for him to attract attention from the WWE, starting with his first tryout just 10 days after his ROW debut.
@GREATBLACKOTAKU pic.twitter.com/2k4WxPsc04
— Graven🇵🇸 (@gravenbabies) April 14, 2018
In August of 2016, WWE officially signed Brennan Williams, assigning him to the Performance Center. He made his NXT Live Event debut that September in a Battle Royal. He’s been working NXT Live Events since then, but has yet to debut on TV, often fighting larger opponents, such as Kassius Ohno, Donovan Dijak and Lars Sullivan (Williams is 6’6″ and 315 lbs.). The night before his ROW iPPV appearance, on this past Friday April 13, Williams was in action for NXT in Venice, Florida, where he once again faced Kassius Ohno.
@KassiusOhno @WWELadyRefJess @GREATBLACKOTAKU pic.twitter.com/FoEieFfM18
— Graven🇵🇸 (@gravenbabies) April 14, 2018
Brennan Williams’ appearance for ROW marks the latest NXT Superstar to be allowed to work for another indie promotion while under contract to the WWE/NXT, that in recent history has included Apollo at PCW in the UK, Oney Lorcan in Beyond and Kassius Ohno in ICW in Scotland.
