“He Lets Me Run Free”: Ricky Saints Talks About Shawn Michaels Helping Him In NXT

For months, there were rumors that Ricky Saints (formerly known as Ricky Starks) wanted to leave All Elite Wrestling. Despite being one of their popular talents, Ricky never really saw a consistent push on AEW programming.

He had matches against the likes of CM Punk and Chris Jericho, where he won. This should’ve been enough to catapult him to the top of the ladder, but it didn’t. There were rumors that Ricky refused to cooperate with creatives, but he denied these reports.

Starks’ contract with AEW ran out earlier this year, and it didn’t take him long to debut in NXT. He’s been here for 8 months now and has achieved a decent bit of success already.

The wrestler was recently a guest on Busted Open Radio, where he discussed his NXT run and Shawn Michaels, among other things.

Ricky Saints Says Shawn Michaels Lets Him “Run Free” In NXT

Sarah Bellia, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Shawn Michaels became NXT’s booker in 2021, and since then has produced some of the best television moments in the brand’s history. He’s made stars like Trick Williams and Oba Femi, and has also been dedicating a lot of effort to building Ricky Saints’ character.

Speaking on Busted Open Radio, Ricky Saints praised Michaels’ work in NXT. He revealed that The Heartbreak Kid doesn’t think of Saints as a “typical babyface,” and has given him creative freedom.

This approach seems to work for them, as Saints said, it’s much easier to reel someone in when they’re going in the wrong direction than to not allow them any room to move at all.

“Shawn is awesome. Shawn is great because Shawn can give you — I remember one time Shawn pulled me aside and he goes, ‘You know, you’re not like a typical — and I hate to even pull the curtain like that — you’re not the typical baby face.’

I get it, so it’s always good to have that type of perspective because too often you have someone’s idea of what something is supposed to be, and they try to put it on you, and it’s like, ‘Yeah, it ain’t working.’ There’s certain times where Shawn does like, ‘Ah, man, come on.’

But for the most part, he lets me run free because it’s easy to let somebody run free and then wrangle them in, as opposed to, you’re putting them in a straight box and they don’t have room to move. So I think he appreciates that. And I of course appreciate it because that’s all I ever wanted.”

Ricky Saints recently won the NXT Championship at No Mercy, following a victory over Oba Femi. He’s already had two title victories on the brand in the same year, which shows how much faith Michaels has in him as a wrestler.

Main image credit: Miguel Discart from Bruxelles, Belgique, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons