On Sunday’s Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez recapped some of the key matches and angles from the NXT tapings that took place on Thursday and Friday in Atlanta, GA. The tapings will cover most of the TV leading up to the Takeover: New Orleans show but I think there might be one more taping next month.
One name that was noticeably absent from the tapings was Lars Sullivan. It’s notable because he was getting a huge push and there were big plans for him at Takeover: New Orleans. “There’s something going on and I don’t know the answer to this question. The original main event for New Orleans…I don’t know this 100 percent but [I’m sure] 90 percent [the main event] was gonna be Andrade against Lars Sullivan,” Meltzer said, “Lars Sullivan has disappeared off the face of the Earth. He was not at any of the tapings. At the last set of tapings they announced a number 1 contenders match with Lars and Killian Dane and it ended up being Aleister Black and Killian Dane. Aleister Black is gonna get the shot so I don’t know what happened. Lars Sullivan wasn’t at the tapings, he wasn’t at the house shows this weekend, I’m not sure when he last wrestled but something’s going on there.”
The last time Sullivan wrestled, according to cagematch.net, was on January 6 at a live event in Charlotte, North Carolina. He was winning all of his matches including matches against Roderick Strong and a DQ win over Adam Cole at a live event in December so it was clear that he was in line for a huge push as a top contender for the NXT Championship.
Bryan Alvarez noted that Sullivan was tweeting regularly and stopped on January 8th, just 2 days after the show in North Carolina. Meltzer said that, from what he was told, he hasn’t been seen at the Performance Center.
We’ll pass along updates as they become available.
UPDATE: Sullivan sent out this tweet after fans sent him tweets about his disappearance from NXT shows:
Lars Sullivan is DA MAN
— LarsWWE (@LarsSWWE) February 4, 2018
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