WWE News: Dakota Kai discusses her heel persona, help from Shawn Michaels and Triple H

Since her WWE NXT debut in 2016, Dakota Kai has predominantly performed as a crowd favorite character. However, she willingly risked her connection with the fans when she turned her heel by attacking Tegan Nox at NXT TakeOver: WarGames last month.

While talking to Sports Illustrated, Kai went off-character to disclose why she had decided to embrace a villainous persona.

It would have been easy for me to keep playing that role. The start of my NXT career, up until I got injured, was very much playing that role. Deep down, I knew I had so much more to offer than that. When the opportunity came, I seized it. I wanted to show a lot of people what I wanted them to see.

For someone who has mainly worked as a babyface, it must be difficult to suddenly start portraying a more aggressive side. Dakota Kai mentioned that she was nervous as well but the desire to make an impact in front of the sold-out crowd helped her to overcome it.

Whenever I have a match, I’m always nervous, but this was weird. I was nervous, but there was almost a clarity behind it. In the back of my mind, I knew this was my moment to finally make an impact and finally show everyone what they hadn’t seen before. My mind was very clear going into it.

Shawn Michaels's influence

WWE Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels emerged as a breakout star when he turned against his Rockers-teammate, Marty Jannetty. The moment was heartbreaking for the WWE Universe but paved the way for the Heart Break Kid to ascend to the top of the promotion. Similarly, Tommaso Ciampa went against his long-time friend and tag team partner, Johnny Gargano, and after a few days, he would end up being the NXT Champion.

Is a similar fate awaiting Dakota Kai? She thinks so and she also pointed out how there are some differences between her TakeOver: WarGames moment and that between the former DIY.

A lot of people have seen some parallels between myself and Tegan to Gargano and Ciampa, but we’re going to create something completely different. She hasn’t been on TV since War Games. A lot of people will be anticipating her coming back.

Dakota Kai revealed that Shawn Michaels and the NXT supremo, Triple H, have been helping her to get accustomed to this new persona. Also, Kai is aiming at providing her inputs to make her character a success.

Shawn and Triple H have given a lot of feedback and things they want to see, but at the same time, I also want to make it my own. I’m taking this feedback from legends that we work with, but we also want to make it very unique. A mix of the two will really allow us to tell a great story.

Heel Dakota Kai has been working pretty well with the NXT audience and hopefully, it will turn out to be a bigger hit.