Samuel Shaw worked his first match under the NXT banner since signing with the WWE.

The former TNA star did so when he lost to Fabian Aichner in a singles match at the NXT live event on Saturday night in Ocala, FL at the Reserve Pavilion.

https://twitter.com/FLWrestlingFan/status/1107125170823680000

Shaw was under contract with TNA (now known as Impact Wrestling) from 2010 – 2015 where he won the Gut Check competition.

He was recently announced as part of the new Performance Center recruits by the WWE and started training at the facility in Orlando, Florida last month. Trevor Lee, 3.0, Elliott Sexton, Nick Comoroto, Rachael Ellering, Karen Q, Jonah Rock, Ricardo Miller and Omari Palmer were also part of this class.

WWE NXT Ocala, FL Results

• Raul Mendoza defeats Luke Menzies
• Deonna Purrazzo defeats Kacy Catanzaro
• Fabian Aichner (w/Marcel Barthel) defeats Sam Shaw
• Mansoor Al-Shehail defeats Mahabali Shera
• Jessie Elaban & Kairi Sane defeat Karen Q & Rachael Evers
• Kassius Ohno defeats Albert Hardie Jr.
• Dominik Dijakovic defeats Babatunde Aiyegbusi
• Matt Riddle, Mia Yim & Punishment Martinez defeat Marina Shafir & The Undisputed ERA (Kyle O’Reilly & Roderick Strong)

WWE has officially announced the new class of Performance Center recruits. On Monday afternoon, the company confirmed that several new talents are now training at the facility located in Orlando, Florida.

Those talents have some notable names including former Impact Wrestling stars Trevor Lee and Samuel Shaw, as well as ex-ROH (Ring of Honor) stars, ACH and Karen Q.

Also listed as athletes who signed with WWE are Australian wrestlers Jonah Rock and Elliot Sexton, second-generation star Rachael Ellering, former CHIKARA stars tag team 3.0, former Syracuse football player Omari Palmer, Nick Comoroto, and Ricardo Miller.

WWE made the announcement by sharing this photo on their official Twitter account:

Today at the @WWEPC, we welcomed the newest class of recruits. @karenmeee, @RachaelEllering, @TLee910, @GoGoACH, @TheSamuelShaw, @Jagged3point0, @BigMagic3point0, @ElliotSextonAUS, @Jonah_Rock, Nick Comoroto, Omari Palmer and Ricardo Miller. pic.twitter.com/Ensviqw3bI

— WWE Recruit (@WWERecruit) February 11, 2019

Lee was under contract with Impact from 2015 – 2019 where he found success that saw him become an X-Division Champion three times and a Tag Team Champion once. On the flip side, Shaw was under contract with TNA (now known as Impact Wrestling) from 2010 – 2015 where he won the Gut Check competition.

The WWE is expected to make a formal announce via a press release shortly.

Former TNA star Samuel Shaw was recently interviewed by Alex Obert of Journey Of A Frontman about getting his big break in TNA, what he took out of training with Bubba Ray and D-Von, working with Ken Anderson, NXT, discovering his artistic talents, the current state of wrestling and more.

Several former WWE superstars have been outspoken about working with Bubba Ray being reckless in the ring with them, including Renee Dupree and Rico.  Shaw trained at Bubba Ray and D-Von’s Team 3D Academy in Florida and told a story of Bubba Ray hazing several of the students for showing up to a TNA TV taping in jeans instead of suits. Shaw says that Bubba pushed the students so far that guys were puking, tearing hamstrings and “some guy ripped his assh*le out.”

“Do a thousand squats. Right now. Otherwise you’re kicked out of the school.” He felt like we needed to be disciplined for not being a good representation for the school. I got text messages from all these guys and they’re all like, “Oh my God, Bubba made us do a thousand squats. None of us could do a thousand. Guys were puking. Some guy ripped his asshole out, tore his hamstring. Guys are just dropping like flies.

Bubba’s disappointed in everybody. He said ‘Don’t think I won’t get Sam cause I’ll go to one of his little indy shows and I’ll make him do it in front of all the boys there.’” I was just waiting for mine. I was like, “Okay, I’ve never done a thousand squats before. I’m gonna go in every day and if that’s what he wants me to do, I’m ready for it.”

I went in every day and he never showed up for about two weeks. And then all of a sudden, he showed up one day. Everybody thought he’d forget about it and that it’s all water under the bridge. But nope, he sees me and he says, “Get your ass in the ring. A thousand squats. You gotta go past parallel. If you don’t do a thousand, I’ll just know what kind of man you are and you’re not welcome back here.” I proceeded to do a thousand squats and I never thought that I could do that. It was a challenge. The thought of doing it sucked, but once I completed that, I realized that was all mental. He tested me and I did it.

I went in the office and I thanked him. I’m not saying that he had ultimate respect for me after that or anything, but I think he was like, “Okay, I see this kid. He fessed up to fucking up. He paid the price and he did it.” He’s always gonna test you. You’re gonna screw up in this business, especially as a young guy just trying to come up and make it. Hopefully you don’t screw up in front of a Vince McMahon or something like that. Screwing up in front of a Bully Ray, that’s probably worse. I just made it a goal of mine to just always make him proud.

There’s much more to the interview – check it out at Journeyofafrontman.com.

Former TNA performer Samuel Shaw recently spoke with The News Hub’s Marc Madison about the old TNA Gut Check Challenges, WWE Tough Enough and his training in Ohio Valley Wrestling. Below are some of the highlights from the interview.

On the pros of the Gut Check Challenge/Tough Enough: “I really feel like in the long run, I feel like the Gut Check challenge and Tough Enough are really good ways to take a talent that might have not had an opportunity otherwise. Especially with Gut Check, I felt like they were bringing in some talent that somebody might have seen somewhere and said, ‘hey, let’s give this guy an opportunity’ and I don’t know if it’s always for the right reasons. For me, it’s just my personal opinion but I felt like I was brought in to the Gut Check because they were going to say no. I feel like they had already said yes to a number of talent for whatever reasons whether they performed well or not. Alex Silva was going to be a no but then Ric Flair changed his mind on the spot. I think there were 3 yes’ and they were looking for a no because they were trying to make this like an American Idol thing. We need some drama, we need some guys to not pass the test and make this good TV.

I think the decision was already made, like I said just my opinion. I feel like I performed well and I had showed a lot of heart and passion and I really wanted it and I was told yes and even Eric Bischoff came up to me afterwards and he mentioned to me, ‘I pretty much knew it was going to be a no but then you went out there and did really well. How can we say no to that’? Do I think I would have gotten those opportunities in TNA to get a contract there? Yes. But, everything in this business is right place, right time. I was given that opportunity and I was always told to go out there and shine. With whatever opportunity they give you. It was crazy because there were some really bad Gut Check performances and I almost don’t want to name names but I remember one particular guy that Gunner had to wrestle and honestly it made for really good TV. You saw this talent given an opportunity to come and he basically wasn’t ready for that environment. It just showed up in his work and he had blown up and Gunner was just like ‘oh, man’. And you can tell it was just bad. For the casual fan and the diehard fan you could see how real this could actually get, really quickly.’

On training under Rip Rogers in OVW: “I remember the first day sort of showing up a tad bit late to my first OVW training camp session with Rip Rogers. I have no idea what to expect. Al Snow told me ‘oh, you’re going to love training with Rip Rogers’, you’re going to learn a lot. I show up and of course he’s already got people in the ring doing stuff. There was about 20 people there and I walked up and I put out my hand and I try to introduce myself to Rip Rogers and he just sort of looks at me and says, “Who the f*** are you” and I am like I’m Samuel Shaw and he responds, “Okay, why the f*** should I care? What the f*** do you want?” I’m oh my god is this really how this is going to go? I’ve heard stories about this guy but okay and he tells me to get in line and let’s see how you can bump and by the end of it I think he sort of like me because I showed him some sort of athletic ability and not just a jabroni that is just coming in and wasn’t some bodybuilder muscle look to him and he wasn’t going to really do anything special. But at the end of it he was really receptive to me and I enjoyed training with Rip Rogers. It was very short.

The developmental program for TNA at OVW was very short lived and changes were always happening. There was no real structure I guess you could say. It was sort of like here we have training a couple of days a week and you have 4 or 5 shows a week which is tremendous because you are getting into that mode of working each and every day and I think that it was a tremendous learning experience. I went into the whole OVW experience thinking that I was already trained really well coming from Curtis Hughes and then coming from Team 3D academy for four years. Getting signed with TNA and then I thought I had to go back and train some more? Destroy my body and this and that. I was there for practically a year and I feel like I learned a tremendous amount in that time and I look back on it as a very fond memory for me.”

Check out the complete interview at The-Newshub.com.

• VIDEO: HILARIOUS SNL-Type Sketch Of BROCK LESNAR As ESPN Security!

Former TNA Star Samuel Shaw recently spoke with The Two Man Power Trip Of Wrestling podcast about a number of topics related to his TNA run. Below are some of the highlights.

On his release from TNA: “I wasn’t too surprised to be perfectly honest. I had sort have been on the shelf not really doing anything for quite some time and I was extremely ready to get back on TV, just busting my ass in the gym and being a student of the game and pitching ideas like crazy. Just doing everything I could to get in front of the right people and get back on TV. Things just didn’t pan out the way that I thought they might, I’m not heartbroken over it whatsoever, I’m excited about the future and I think that there are a lot of great opportunities out there right now for someone like myself.”

On how he found out he was let go: “I got a call from John Gaburick or “Big” as everyone calls him and we had a nice conversation and he was responsible for getting this character for me off the ground and he had a lot of faith in me to run with a character like that and I give him a lot of credit for that. We had a nice conversation, he just told me that in all honesty that “we have two hours of TV a week and we have so much talent on the roster” and said he felt bad just keeping me off TV and wanted to give me the freedom to get out there and use my talents and I think that was a very nice thing of him to do.”

On what is it about TNA that causes the abrupt end to storylines: “I just feel like TNA in a sense has an identity crisis. Since I signed there in 2012 and not to mention that I’ve been doing stuff with them since 2008 because I trained at Bubba and D-Von’s School in Kissimmee, Florida and that is basically in TNA’s backyard with Universal Studios and The Impact Zone. I’ve seen the place change so much and it seems like they have a lot of momentum going into a new regime change and then it just sort of fizzles out and they not so much drop the ball but they really know how to start something that looks like it has longevity and is going to be great and it just seems like they don’t know where to go from that point. They get to a high point and it just fizzles out.”

On if Samuel Shaw was booked into a corner: “I was pitching ideas left and right. I feel that maybe coming in and having such a strong presence as the character I was portraying it may have put me up against the wall from a creative sense, I was known as the “creepy bastard” and just the “creepy guy”. What was he going to do just creep on the knockouts and move on to the next one? It’s basically what a psycho does just repeats the same thing over and over again but I think there were so many different directions the character could have gone and I feel like there was so much longevity to the character and in a lot of ways the writers did too and that’s why they kept me around for so long. They just didn’t have anything at the moment and they kept signing new guys and new talent was coming in and they were ready to move forward with other guys and I was sort of sitting at home not doing anything but was ready, willing and able to do something.”

On if he experienced any pay issues: “I never put all my eggs into one basket and I’ve always had other little things going on. I didn’t really pay attention to when my checks got to me. I was just staying busy and not trying to worry myself to death over little things like that. But I never had a case where I did not get paid. I don’t think my checks were very late whatsoever and they have never not paid me.”

On how was he approached with the Samuel Shaw character: “‘Big’ approached me about doing somewhat of an “American Psycho ” gimmick and I was very receptive to that because that is one of my favorite movies of all time, Directed by Mary Harron, and Christian Bale is phenomenal in the movie and as luck would have it it’s just a movie I would gravitate towards. Not to mention the Dexter element, that is just a tremendous TV show that I’ve enjoyed tremendously and sort of taking elements from both of those; the movie and the TV show and putting it in a wrestling related environment was going to be a challenge but I think it had a pretty big impact initially and there was so much more that we could have done with this character. To be honest, I don’t think I’m done with this character, my creative juices are flowing now more than ever before.”

Check out the complete interview at Podomatic.com.

• HUGE Backstage Update On Beef Between RODDY PIPER & STEVE AUSTIN~!!

It looks like Gunner wasn’t the only main roster talent to part ways with TNA Impact Wrestling this week.

Just 24 hours after the news broke that Gunner had parted ways with TNA, the news surfaced on Sunday that Samuel Shaw may be on the way out as well.

Shaw, who made his first appearance with TNA back in August of 2010, wrote on Twitter, “I can be an artist in any promotion.”

Shaw, who also spent a year in TNA’s Ohio Valley Wrestling developmental system before coming back as a regular character on television in 2013, also wrote on Sunday, “Time to explore new artistic ventures. Thanks to everyone at Impact Wrestling that helped maximize my talents.”

Whether or not Shaw was informed of his TNA release on Sunday, which happens to be the Father’s Day holiday, remains to be seen, although one would assume that the announcement of the release came earlier, and that he just made the news publc today. For that matter, Shaw may have personally requested to be released from the promotion.

We should have more information on this story on Monday afternoon.

Below are the tweets Shaw sent out on Tuesday, June 21, 2015:

https://twitter.com/TheSamuelShaw/status/612331550064144384

https://twitter.com/TheSamuelShaw/status/612767895404290049

• NEW PHOTO GALLERY: Ronda Rousey In SKIMPY Bikinis & SUPER-TIGHT Outfits!

Santana Garrett, formerly known as Brittany in TNA, reportedly decided against signing a new contract offered to her by the promotion.

Brittany was in the middle of a storyline with Samuel Shaw and Gunner, however it appears she’s done with TNA for now.

She is expected to instead do some modeling work, as well as some other potential non-TNA wrestling stuff. For example, she worked Friday night’s Shine internet pay-per-view, something she wouldn’t have been allowed to do while under contract to TNA.

– Lucha Underground preview for tonight:

* Carnitas vs Mariachi Loco.

* Mil Muertes vs. Ricky Mandell.

* Fenix Jr. vs. Pentagón Jr. vs. Drago.

Also appearing are Chavo Guerrero, Konnan and more.

– TNA Impact Wrestling Preview:

* An announcement from X-Division champion Samoa Joe.

* Gunner vs. Samuel Shaw in a No DQ match.

* Eric Young vs. Tyrus.

* Taryn Terrell vs. Madison Rayne.

Plus, Davey Richards responds to James Storm’s ultimatum.

* Why The 10-Man SURVIVOR SERIES Main Event Is A Very Bad Idea (Editorial & Discussion)

– There has been backstage talk within TNA that there were some additional cuts made to office employees last week.

– TNA will be airing the Best Of Ultimate X “Unfinished Business” pay-per-view special this month.

– Debuting this Friday on pay-per-view will be a “TNA One Night Only: World Cup of Wrestling” event with teams captained by Ethan Carter III, Eric Young, Kurt Angle and Bobby Roode competing to win the TNA World Cup. The show, which was taped in April at the old Impact Zone, will feature the following lineup:

*Eddie Edwards vs. James Storm
*Jessie Godderz and Robbie E vs. Mr. Anderson and Sanada
*Gail Kim vs. Madison Rayne
*Eric Young vs. Bobby Roode
*Kurt Angle vs. Magnus
*Angelina Love vs. ODB
*Ethan Carter III vs. Davey Richards
*Bully Ray and Gunner vs. Samuel Shaw and Kenny King
*Finals for World Cup

TNA executive John Gaburick announced via his official Twitter account the re-signing of three TNA talents. Gaburick tweeted the following on Wednesday afternoon:

Happy to announce @RealBrookeAdams @TheSamuelShaw & @seiyasanada are signed to new deals with #TNA @IMPACTWRESTLING. pic.twitter.com/pvnhNAxpNU

— John Gaburick (@JohnGaburick) July 23, 2014

The official TNA website followed up on Gaburick’s tweet with the following:

“In a tweet from Executive Vice President John Gaburick, it was announced that TNA has resigned 3 top wrestlers with new contracts. Multi-year deals were signed with both Brooke and Samuel Shaw and a 1-year deal was inked with Sanada.

TNA Wrestling is proud of these three incredible performers, as well as our fantastic roster featuring the best wrestlers from around the globe. Stay tuned for more announcements as we have them!”

For more information, visit ImpactWrestling.com.

The following is the final lineup for tonight’s TNA Sacrifice pay-per-view:

TNA World Heavyweight Title Match
Magnus vs. Eric Young

TNA X-Division Title Match
Tigre Uno vs. Sanada

TNA Knockouts Title Match
Angelina Love vs. Madison Rayne

TNA Tag-Team Title Handicap Match
Eddie Edwards & Davey Richards vs. Robbie E, Jessie Godderz & Zema Ion

Tables Match
Bully Ray vs. Bobby Roode

I-Quit Match
Gunner vs. James Storm

Committed Match
Samuel Shaw vs. Mr. Anderson

Tag-Team Match
Willow and Kurt Angle vs. Ethan Carter III and Rockstar Spud

Make sure to visit SESCOOPS.COM later tonight for the absolute best live play-by-play results coverage of TNA Sacrifice 2014.

The following is the final lineup for this Sunday’s TNA Sacrifice pay-per-view:

TNA World Heavyweight Title Match
Magnus vs. Eric Young

TNA X-Division Title Match
Tigre Uno vs. Sanada

TNA Knockouts Title Match
Angelina Love vs. Madison Rayne

TNA Tag-Team Title Handicap Match
Eddie Edwards & Davey Richards vs. Robbie E, Jessie Godderz & Zema Ion

Tables Match
Bully Ray vs. Bobby Roode

I-Quit Match
Gunner vs. James Storm

Committed Match
Samuel Shaw vs. Mr. Anderson

Tag-Team Match
Willow and Kurt Angle vs. Ethan Carter III and Rockstar Spud

The following are results from TNA’s “World Cup” pay-per-view taping, which took place on Saturday night in Orlando, Florida.

The teams were selected by way of a draft. The teams were as follows:

Captain Eric Young with Bully Ray, Eddie Edwards, Gunner and ODB.

Captain Kurt Angle with Davey Richards, Mr. Anderson, Sanada and Madison Rayne.

Captain Ethan Carter III with Jessie, Robbie E., Magnus and Gail Kim.

Captain Bobby Roode with James Storm, Kenny King, Samuel Shaw and The Beautiful People.

Qualifying Matches

– Eddie Edwards def. James Storm
– The Bro Mans def. Mr. Anderson and Sanada
– Gail Kim def. Madison Rayne
– Eric Young def. Bobby Roode
– Kurt Angle def. Magnus
– Angelina Love def. ODB
– Ethan Carter III def. Davey Richards
– Bully Ray & Gunner def. Kenny King & Samuel Shaw

TNA World Cup Finals

(The remaining two teams, captained by Young and EC3, met in elimination matches.)

– ODB def. Gail Kim
– Robbie E. def. ODB
– The Bro Mans def. Eddie Edwards
– Bully Ray def. Jessie
– Robbie E. def. Bully Ray
– Gunner def. Robbie E.
– Magnus def. Gunner
– Eric Young def. Ethan Carter III via DQ.
– Eric Young def. Magnus to win the TNA World Cup for his team.