The writing has been on the wall for the NXT faction SaNiTy every since the four-person troop – lead by former IMPACT World Champion Eric Young and featuring European stars Axel Tischer (Alexander Wolfe), Big Damo (Killian Dain) and Nikki Storm (Nikki Cross) – got the call to join SmackDown Live in 2018 short one member (Cross). After a somewhat auspicious debut, SaNitY became never-beens on the Blue Brand, while Nikki Cross remained in a holding pattern back in NXT. When Nikki Cross got the call to join one of the two big brands in late 2018, many hoped that the stable that had become a cult favourite in NXT would be reunited. But then on Monday, Eric Young was drafted to Raw as part of the Superstar Shake-Up, cutting off the head of SaNitY. But the bad news didn’t end there for the once promising international unit.
https://twitter.com/KillianDain/status/1118117597881483264
Early on Tuesday morning, Killian Dain’s Twitter handle reverted back to his real name, Damian Mackle, and the untapped Superstar said his goodbyes to his fellow SaNitY members, effectively declaring that the group was no more. While the change to his real name is something many WWE Superstars still employed by the company may result in nothing more than a rebranding, it didn’t seem like he was getting ready to make a new step in the WWE Universe. But that wasn’t the worst of it.
Thank you! @KillianDain @NikkiCrossWWE @TheEricYoung #RIPSAnitY#WWE #SmackDownMontreal #SDLive #SuperstarShakeup pic.twitter.com/jaBHFDnwlC
— 𝕬𝖝𝖊𝖑 𝕬𝖃𝕰𝕸𝕬𝕹 𝕿𝖎𝖘𝖈𝖍𝖊𝖗 (@axeman3016) April 17, 2019
Later on Tuesday night, Alexander Wolfe announced his “Goodbye” to the WWE Universe in a thank you letter on his Twitter.
We (SAnitY) made our TV debut October 2016 for NXT at Full Sail University in Orlando, FL. We had a great time in NXT and we accomplished a lot:
– NXT Tag Team Champions
– NXT Tag Team of the year 2017
– 1st ever NXT/WWE WAR GAMES Match
– performed in front of about 15k people at a sold out Takeover PPV
– Growing together as athletes and performers The whole group is like a family to me. I made 3 good friends over the last 3 years and I am really grateful for that. It was without a doubt a great time. Thank you guys for everything!
Thank you to the entire SD locker room. Thank you for the good vibes, laughs and wisdom. I appreciate all of you and I wish you all the best for your future careers. Thank you to the fans who supported us and never stopped believing in us. I appreciate you as well and trust me I speak for all 4 of us.
It’s time to leave this behind and walk a different path.
RIP SAnitY
Goodbye #WWE
While it’s entirely possible they’re all being repackaged for singles runs, the fact that Wolfe said goodbye to the SmackDown locker room while not being drafted to Raw would seem to indicate that perhaps Wolfe – and possibly Killian Dain as well – may also be joining the list of WWE Superstars who have chosen to return to the indies instead of remain in static limbo in the WWE Universe.
Alexander Wolfe joined the WWE in 2015 as the first German-born WWE Superstar, following a career in Europe that began in 2004 with Germany’s East Side Wrestling (ESW). In 2009, he joined Westside Xtreme Wrestling (wXw) where he achieved his greatest success, as “The Ax-Man” Axel Tischer, a brief member of Ringkampf, who became the wXw Unified World Wrestling Champion for 293-days in 2012.
Killian Dain is a world-wide respected trainer of many UK talents seeing success worldwide and was a top competitor in the UK indie scene as it was beginning to explode. A longtime regular with the Scottish Wrestling Alliance (SWA) since 2005, he became a big star with Glasgow’s Insane Championship Wrestling (ICW), as well as Revolution Pro (RevPro), Defiant Wrestling (then WhatCulture Pro Wrestling), PROGRESS Wrestling, and his home country’s Over the Top (OTT) Wrestling. As “Big Damo” O’Connor, he was a former Defiant and ICW World Heavyweight Champion.
Pro Wrestling Sheet’s Ryan Satin reached out to the WWE who stated that Wolfe was still under contract and that he could instead be headed back to NXT as a singles wrestler. With both having such a strong European connection, they could both end up in NXT UK over the next few weeks as well, as NXT UK gets set to tape in Glasgow, Scotland (where Dain became a big star prior to signing with WWE) this weekend.
WWE officials tell @WrestlingSheet Alexander Wolfe currently remains under contract. According to sources, however, we’re told the wrestler might be moving back to NXT … which would explain why he said goodbye to WWE.
FULL ARTICLE ⏩ https://t.co/XXCxcpvVR1 pic.twitter.com/wMploLSnr7
— Ryan Satin (@ryansatin) April 17, 2019
