One of the most notorious stories of the earlier days of NXT was the amount of real life animosity between former WWE talent Simon Gotch and the man now known as simply nZo, aka Enzo Amore.
Gotch has a famous shoot quote talking about his extreme dislike for the “realest guy in the room” and while many fans continue to wonder more about how it affected their work, someone who can provide an answer is Matt Rehwoldt. The former Aiden English and Gotch’s tag team partner in The Vaudevillains spoke with the Wrestling With Awareness podcast and its host Vikram Prashar about the heat between them and if it affected their work.
“I, I mean, it’s, yeah, what, it’s the first, whenever you type in either one of their names, I think it’s the first YouTube video that comes up, I think I’ve talked about this in 1 or 2 more other interviews, it is, it’s like, “Shoots on Enzo Amore” and everything, I mean, no it’s no secret, I mean, yeah, they didn’t get along. Was it some like blood feud? No. They just had, you know, nZo is the consummate loudmouth kind of entertainer, and I think he would tell you that himself. He, he talks the freaking talk, he’s all, all personality, and all that stuff. Simon, is, is, as I said before, he’s the wrestler’s wrestler, he’s all about technical, and everything like that, so immediately there’s a clash there, and just, their personalities, yeah, they never got along. Did-they weren’t throwing fists or anything backstage, we were able to have some pretty actually darn good matches with them, especially on like, a lot of the NXT road shows, house show loops, and stuff like that, so, the chemistry, I think was there as tag teams, two very, we had a lot-oh my god, we-I remember a, an NXT show in Philadelphia, where we ended up doing a chicken fight. With, I think, was it me on, which is funny because I’m the taller one, I think I was on Simon’s shoulders, and nZo was on Cass’s shoulders in the middle of like, I think it was a tag team title match, we’re like, on our partners shoulders, like, swinging punches at each other, and then we take the big bump, like, so we had a lot of fun with them, but, but yeah those guys were not the best of buddies outside the ring.
Of course one of the most famous incidents involving the two teams happened at WWE Payback in 2016 when nZo suffered a concussion in their match. Though no blame was directly placed on Gotch, Gotch was the one who threw him into the ropes which caused him to hit the matt and then the ringside floor. Though no love was lost between the two men, they often made for fun television. You can watch the interview below.
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