Rumor: Original Plans for NXT Title Match + Mystery of Lars Sullivan

This post contains NXT spoilers.

The main event for NXT TakeOver: New Orleans on April 7 will be Andrade “Cien” Almas vs. Aleister Black for the NXT Championship.

However, the originally planned main event was apparently Andrade Almas vs. Lars Sullivan for the NXT Championship, according to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio.

However, strangely, Lars Sullivan has seemingly just disappeared from NXT. He has not been at the last two sets of NXT tapings or any house shows since January 6.

He last appeared on the January 10 episode of NXT, where he destroyed Lio Rush, then called out Killian Dain, seemingly setting up a feud/match between them. However, at the next set of tapings, Killian Dain started a feud with Aleister Black and the two had a match, which Black won to become the number 1 contender to the NXT Championship.

Sullivan has also reportedly not been seen recently at the WWE Performance Center.

He also stopped tweeting on January 8 after tweeting pretty regularly, but after the report by Meltzer, he re-emerged on Twitter, posting this:

Lars Sullivan is DA MAN

— LarsWWE (@LarsSWWE) February 4, 2018

It’s possible that WWE just decided to change their plans and go with a push for Aleister Black instead and there’s nothing “going on” with Sullivan, but the whole thing does seem pretty strange since he was being pushed prominently as a monster, then just abruptly disappeared from any storylines. Sullivan could also be injured, but there have been no reports on that. Hopefully he returns to NXT soon because Lars Sullivan rules imo…