Heath Slater recalls the changes he made ahead of WWE NXT season one.
After three years in WWE’s developmental system, Heath Slater had an opportunity to reach the next level by competing on season one of WWE NXT, in which the winner received a main roster WWE contract. Before he officially stepped onto the WWE NXT stage, however, WWE officials instructed Slater to alter his look.
“Dr. Tom (Prichard) pulled eight of us in the room, and he had an email saying ‘we need your eight best down there that are ready for TV.’ I was one of the eight. Next thing I know, they thought that I looked too much like Edge,” Slater told Inside The Ropes Magazine. “My hair was long, I had the long coat, I had long tights with emblems on the side that resembled, but didn’t look like [Edge’s]. But they told me before I got called up to go to NXT that I need to cut my hair off, gotta go to trunks and all this stuff to where I’m like, ‘Are you just changing everything about me?’
“I was a bad guy in developmental,” he continued. “They wanted me to be a good guy on television to the point that they were stripping from us everything that we’d done, and now we were going on this game show and being people that we don’t know how to be.”
At the time of WWE NXT season one’s airing, Adam “Edge” Copeland had just returned to action with a Royal Rumble win, which cemented him a major championship match at WrestleMania 26. Meanwhile, Slater and seven other men participated in various challenges and matches on NXT. Ultimately, Slater placed fourth, with Wade Barrett emerging as the inaugural winner.
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