Vince McMahon Wanted To Keep NXT Talent Away From The Main Roster Says Ariya Daivari

Ariya Daivari was released from WWE, and now he is free to reflect on his time within the company and tell all. The COVID-19 pandemic changed a lot of plans and it also weighed in on Vince McMahon’s logic for some decisions around the company.

While speaking to the Straight Shooting podcast, Daivari said that Vince McMahon did not want NXT superstars to share locker rooms with WWE main roster superstars due to COVID-19. This is also the main reason why RAW Underground was nixed.

Before his WWE release in June, Daivari was a member of the 205 Live roster, a show that was associated with NXT directly. Daivari said that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, changes to how the NXT roster worked with were changed.

Daivari said that the NXT roster at the time was struggling with the spreading of COVID-19 in their locker room worse than what was happening with the main roster. After reports of a main roster wrestler getting COVID-19 from an NXT wrestler, Vince McMahon ordered the NXT roster to be kept separate from the main roster.

“The whole reason 205 Live got moved back to NXT is because NXT was having a little bit of a COVID issue compared to the main roster. A handful of guys were getting coronavirus and this was around the time where nobody really knew exactly how serious this was. They are having a COVID issue in NXT and I believe someone on the main roster got infected.”

Daivari went on to say that members of the NXT and 205 Live rosters were pulled from shows in the ThunderDome and other creative changes were made and told to the NXT and 205 Live rosters with very short notice. We’ll have to see what’s next for Daivari, but he has already been around Impact Wrestling’s backstage area since his departure from Vince McMahon’s company.

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