That was their plan? There have been a lot of moves on the WWE roster in recent months and those seem likely to continue in the future. Some of these are bigger than others as a few of them have seen big names moving away. In some cases that has been from NXT, which has quite a talented roster in its own right. Now we know what might have happened had one of the moves not taken place.

Former NXT Champion Adam Cole made his AEW debut last Sunday at All Out. Other than a few cameo appearances, Cole never made a full time WWE main roster debut. According to Wrestling Observer Radio, there had been plans made to bring him up to the main roster, though not as a full time wrestler. The plan would have seen Keith Lee turn heel with Cole as his manager, albeit under a different name due to Michael Cole being on SmackDown. The pairing would have been similar to Bobby Lashley and Lio Rush with the monster protecting the loud mouthed manager. It is unclear how much Cole knew of these plans.

This could have been messy. Check out what WWE saw in the two of them together and apart:

FULL MATCH - Keith Lee vs. Adam Cole - NXT Title Match: NXT Great American Bash, July 8, 2020

FULL MATCH - Adam Cole vs. Seth Rollins – NXT Title Match: Raw, Nov. 4, 2019

FULL MATCH - Keith Lee vs Dominik Dijakovic - NXT North American Title Match: NXT TakeOver: Portland

Opinion: This is about as clear cut of a situation as you can get. Vince McMahon, or at least someone in charge, sees Cole as a manager instead of a wrestler. If that is how they see one of the biggest stars NXT has ever had and the longest reigning NXT Champion in history, what is the point of NXT or its title? Maybe NXT should be retooled, because McMahon and company don’t like what they are getting from there.

What do you think of the plans? How would you have booked Cole on the main roster? Let us know in the comments below.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 60,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 6,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his- Amazon author page with 30 wrestling books.

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