Ring of Honor wrestlers have had a lot of success when moving on to the WWE over the years. Former Ring of Honor champions like CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Seth Rollins, and Samoa Joe have all been very successful in their transition to the WWE. Now, another former Ring of Honor champion is getting the chance. PWInsider reports that Adam Cole has signed a new deal to join the WWE and will start out on their NXT brand.
Adam Cole follows both Bobby Fish and fellow former Ring of Honor champion Kyle O’Reilly to recently leave Ring of Honor for the WWE. As a matter of fact, those three men have an interesting history together in ROH.
Adam Cole’s connection with WWE NXT stars
When Adam Cole and Kyle O’Reilly first got their start in Ring of Honor, they were a tag team called Future Shock. The two were a scrappy, underdog face team until the team split up and the two men took sides in the ROH Championship feud between Eddie Edwards and Davey Richards.
Adam Cole went on to hold the Ring of Honor TV title for an impressive 246 days but then underwent a huge change in character and finally reached his potential in Ring of Honor. Cole beat Michael Elgin in a tournament to crown the new Ring of Honor champion and then turned heel.
Meanwhile, Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish began teaming up and called themselves ReDRagon. That team was highly successful and held the Ring of Honor tag team titles three times for a combined 672 days — the second longest in ROH history after only the Briscoe Brothers.
Adam Cole also broke a record as the only man to ever hold the Ring of Honor championship three different times. Only Austin Aries and Jay Briscoe ever held the title more than once. Cole’s 445 days as ROH champion is also fourth best behind Samoa Joe (645), Nigel McGuinness (545), and Daniel Bryan (462).
On top of that, Adam Cole is also the longest reigning PWG champion of all time, with a 538-day title reign. That is the same title that men like Kevin Owens, Chris Hero, Roderick Strong, Sami Zayn, Daniel Bryan, Cesaro, and Kyle O’Reilly all held.
Things between Adam Cole and Kyle O’Reilly came to a head last year when O’Reilly finally won the Ring of Honor championship from Adam Cole. It was a short-lived reign because O’Reilly chose to leave ROH after that for the WWE. Now, Adam Cole is following him to the WWE and, more specifically, NXT .
Could WWE NXT use ROH stars in an angle together?
Now, the big question is whether WWE NXT will use Adam Cole, Kyle O’Reilly, and Bobby FIsh in an angle together. A lot of signs point in that direction. For one thing, the debut of Kyle O’Reilly in WWE NXT saw him lose to Aleister Black. The debut for Bobby Fish saw him lose to Aleister Black.
With Aleister Black positioned as a huge unstoppable star, it only makes sense that a group of men who he beat could team up and take him on together as a faction. That is where Adam Cole could fit in. This weekend is WWE NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn , and Black will fight Hideo Itami, who wrestled in ROH as KENTA. There is a chance that the former Ring of Honor stars could invade the event and make their intentions known.
[Featured Image by Ring of Honor]
