Thursday, March 28, 2024
EditorialWhere Are They Now? Every Rookie From NXT Season 1

Where Are They Now? Every Rookie From NXT Season 1

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NXT Season 1 Elimination #5: Heath Slater

The fifth individual to be eliminated from NXT was Heath Slater. Slater was represented by WWE pro Christian. In his first match on NXT, Christian and Heath Slater would defeat Carlito and Michael Tarver in under five minutes. Throughout the first season, Slater would amass a record of five wins and six losses. Despite various victories, Slater couldn’t be saved from elimination.

Young would be eliminated on the Week 14 edition of NXT via the WWE Pro voting system. As the story goes with this cast of superstars, Slater would debut on the WWE main roster as a member of The Nexus. In January 2011, Slater would refuse to take part in The New Nexus’s animalistic initiation. Thus, Slater promptly walked away from the group. This would lead to the establishment of The Corre – a stable of former NXT rookies that wanted to terrorize WWE. Wait a minute… this sounds familiar.

The Corre would not last throughout the year, though. This would leave Slater on his own by the end of 2011. Slater would go on to feud with various legends on Raw, former 3MB alongside Jinder Mahal and Drew McIntyre, tag alongside Titus O’Neil as “Slater-Gator”, and debut a new stable – The Social Outcasts. However, Slater’s big break was yet to come.

In 2016, the WWE draft and brand split came and went. However, one thing remained – one person remained – Heath Slater had remained undrafted. Slater would appear on SmackDown in late July to cut a worked shoot promo addressing his lack of a contract. He would then be attacked by a returning Rhyno. This would spark a movement. Wrestling fans across the world would chant for Slater during segments that had nothing to do with him.

This would lead to the beginning of Slater’s new gimmick – the desperate father with several children whom he had to support. He’s got kids! He needs this job! Eventually, Rhyno and Slater would form a friendship and become the inaugural WWE SmackDown Tag Team Champions. Their partnership would end in July 2019 when Rhyno was released from the company.

By the end of his career with WWE, Slater would be a 3-time WWE Tag Team Champion, a 1-time WWE SmackDown Tag Team Champion, and a 1-time WWE 24/7 Champion. Slater was released from his WWE contract on April 15, 2020. His final match with the company would come two months afterward, where Heath would lose to then-WWE Champion Drew McIntyre in less than 30 seconds.

Currently, you can find Slater (now wrestling as “Heath”) competing in Impact Wrestling and across the independent circuit. Heath’s last match (as of this writing) took place at Talk ‘N Shop A Mania 2: Rise Of The Torturer in a Ball For A Ball match. In this match, Heath would wrestle as Fake Sting alongside Mr. Huges, The Barbarian, The Karate Man, The Warlord, and Virgil – collectively known as The Cock Torture World Order – to defeat Chad 2 Badd and Sex Ferguson in fifteen minutes. So… uh… Heath sounds like he’s keeping himself busy.

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