Shawn Spears made a surprise return to “NXT” in late February and immediately began making an impact, sending Ridge Holland into exile and taking a chunk out of Dijak in a banger of a match that saw Joe Gacy’s thievery of Spears’ steel chair play a major factor in an eventual loss for “The Chairman.” And what happens when you steal a steel chair from “The Chairman?” You get smoked with said chair ahead of your match against a monster like “NXT” North American Champion Oba Femi, who proceeds to beat you to a pulp in a match that had to be stopped by the referee. And when you’re Joe Gacy, from there, you head right to the back to the commissioner’s office and ask for a match with Spears to seek revenge.

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Thanks to all of that, we have Gacy and Spears on the “NXT” Stand and Deliver Kickoff Show (although these kickoff shows, apparently, are now called “Countdown to _______” so we’ll go with that). Nearly 80% of our respondents have Spears winning in his return to an “NXT” premium live event for the first time since “NXT” TakeOver: Orlando in April of 2017 when he (as Tye Dillinger) teamed with Kassius Ohno, Roderick Strong, and Ruby Riot in a loss to SAnitY (Alexander Wolfe, Eric Young, Killian Dain, and Nikki Cross). At that same time, Gacy was carving his path toward WWE in CZW and other independent promotions. Maybe the perception of Spears as the seasoned veteran in this match, then, is fueling our collective confidence in him?

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More likely, the steam behind his return to “NXT” is the bigger predicate here, plus the fact that the nature of Gacy’s character — Mr. Crazy Guy — dictates that it doesn’t really suffer much from any loss and he just keeps on tickin’. (See: getting thrown off the roof and into a dumpster and then beaten in an Asylum Match by Dijak, as well as the thrashing from Femi we mentioned earlier.) Either way, it’s good to see Spears back under the WWE umbrella and this should be a fun one to kick off WrestleMania weekend.

Written by Jon Jordan