10 Things WWE Fans Need To Know About SAnitY

The history of pro wrestling is full of great concepts or performers who didn’t quite pan out for one reason or another. World Wrestling Entertainment’s developmental promotion NXT has introduced fans to countless acts that showed a lot of promise, including factions. While the Undisputed Era can be considered a success even though it never moved on to the main roster, the same can’t be said for SAnitY, which actually did get called up.

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Composed of Eric Young, Alexander Wolfe, Nikki Cross, Sawyer Fulton, and later Killian Dain, SAnitY was a heelish faction of crust punks seeking to destabilize the pro wrestling world with a little chaos. They were a blast while they were around, so let’s take a look at what fans should know about this group.

10 Inspired By The Film 'Smokin’ Aces'

The idea for SAnitY actually came from Triple H, who was inspired by the similarly chaotic Tremor Brothers in the underrated Joe Carnahan film Smokin’ Aces.

According to founding member Sawyer Fulton, the group was originally meant to be himself, Marcus Louis, and Solomon Crowe, but the concept didn’t quite work out before Louis was released from the company and Crowe departed the company, returning to his Sami Callihan persona. However, the idea found new life when Fulton and Alexander Wolfe randomly teamed up for a tag team match and found they worked pretty well together.

9 Debuted In The Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic

Once the new version of SAnitY was organized, vignettes for the group aired on NXT, and it was soon announced that the mystery group would take part in the 2016 Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic.

Initially showing up wearing masks, Fulton and Wolfe revealed themselves first as they beat Bobby Roode and Tye Dillinger in the first round, followed by Kota Ibushi and TJ Perkins in the second round. However, their success in the tournament would come to an end in the semi-finals, when they were beaten by TM-61.

8 Eric Young Was The Leader

Following their debut match in the Dusty tournament, the other SAnitY members revealed themselves as Eric Young and Nikki Cross, with Young functioning as the group’s leader. Fans may not have been familiar with Cross, Wolfe, and Fulton, but they certainly knew Young, as he spent 12 years with Impact Wrestling where he won pretty much everything one could win in the company, including the World Title.

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For NXT fans unfamiliar with Impact, Young had actually appeared in Full Sail University once before, taking on Samoa Joe in a one-off match about five months before the debut of SAnitY.

7 Sawyer Fulton Was Replaced With Killian Dain

Unfortunately, the initial lineup of SAnitY didn’t last for long, as Sawyer Fulton tore a pectoral muscle and had to be removed from television. To deal with this in kayfabe, NXT featured a segment where Eric Young discarded Fulton’s jacket.

SAnitY functioned as a three-person team for a bit before being replaced by Irish indie wrestler Big Damo, who adopted the ring name Killian Dain. As for Fulton, he’d be released from WWE in November 2017 and would eventually resurface in Impact Wrestling as “Madman Fulton.”

6 Facilitated Ruby Riott’s NXT Debut

It wasn’t long before SAnitY ran afoul of a whole slew of babyfaces, including Tye Dillinger whom they tried to court to join the team. Before long, an entire squad of babyfaces formed to oppose SAnitY, including Dillinger, Roderick Strong, and No Way Jose.

When it came time for a four-on-four match against the group at NXT TakeOver: Orlando, the heroes needed a female wrestler to oppose Nikki Cross, which resulted in the surprise debut of Ruby Riott, now known as Ruby Soho in AEW.

5 Turned Face Against Authors Of Pain

Once they had moved on from feuding with a random assortment of babyfaces, SAnitY was ready to pursue some championship gold, including the tag team belts. At the time, the division was dominated by the seemingly unbeatable champions, the monster heel duo Authors of Pain.

The group seemed to turn babyface just by virtue of feuding with AOP, and at TakeOver: Brooklyn 3, Eric Young and Alexander Wolfe were able to successfully dethrone Akam and Rezar to capture the NXT Tag Team Championship.

4 Nikki Cross Chased The NXT Women’s Championship

While the SAnitY boys were concerned with the boy’s belts, Nikki Cross pursued the NXT Women’s Championship, with her first attempt to capture gold in WWE being at early January 2017’s TakeOver: San Antonio in a four-way with Billie Kay and Peyton Royce for Asuka’s title.

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Four more major title matches would follow — including an exceptional Last Woman Standing match with Asuka — but Cross would be unsuccessful in her pursuits. Her last big bout for the belt would be against Shayna Baszler at TakeOver: Chicago 2.

3 Took Part In The First WarGames

Further solidifying SAnitY’s turn was the debut of the Undisputed Era, who attacked the group after Young and Wolfe won the tag belts at Brooklyn 3. Soon enough, a three-way feud between the Undisputed Era, SAnitY, and the Authors of Pain would ensue, resulting in a landmark match for NXT: its first WarGames match.

The UE’s Adam Cole would score a pinfall victory over Eric Young in “the Match Beyond,” and a month later Cole’s teammates Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish would dethrone SAnitY as Tag Team Champions.

2 Moved To SmackDown in 2018

Spring of 2018 saw a massive change for SAnitY as the group was moved to SmackDown, albeit as an all-male trio, leaving Nikki Cross to fend for herself in NXT.

While their first big match as part of the main roster was a pay-per-view win over the New Day, the group only wrestled a handful of matches in 2018, closing out the year with a series of losses. Things got worse the following year, as the entire group suffered an embarrassing loss to the Miz in a three-on-one match.

1 Unceremoniously Broken Up In 2019

Following the loss to the Miz, SAnitY disappeared for good, with Eric Young immediately being drafted to Raw while Killian Dain and Alexander Wolfe were respectively moved to NXT and NXT UK. Looking back on SAnitY’s main roster run, Young chalked up the group’s failure to bizarre booking caused by a crossroads of unfortunate circumstances.

However, that wouldn’t be the end of Eric Young as a stable leader: after being released from WWE in 2020, he returned to Impact where he started a new, somewhat similar heel stable, Violent By Design.