Atleast four of the current WWE NXT superstars are slated to be at the SmackDown taping this Friday from Kansas City, Missouri.
Per PWInsider, former NXT women’s tag team champion Dakota Kai, and former NXT women’s champion Io Shirai are both expected to be in the arena for the episode.
On the men’s side, both former Million Dollar champion LA Knight and Diamond Mine Leader Roderick Strong are slated to be at SmackDown.
There is no word yet on what these stars will be doing on the show but they are most likely to be working dark matches as part of the process for their main roster callup.
Lo Shirai hasn’t wrestled on a main roster show since 2019. She was a surprise entrant for the Women’s Royal Rumble match that year.
Dakota Kai hasn’t wrestled on the main roster this year either. Though she was brought in for some dark matches late last year.
Both Strong and Knight, on the other hand, have wrestled several dark matches in recent weeks. The latest of them took place at last week’s SmackDown episode which was won by LA Knight.
These four aren’t the only wrestlers being evaluated as Tommaso Ciampa and Pete Dunne too have been working main roster shows recently. It would be interesting to see how many of them show up at Royal Rumble this Saturday.
