Damian Mackle AKA Big Damo is a former WWE wrestler and he wrestled under the ring name Killian Dain in the company.
Dain was a part of the faction Sanity alongside Nikki Cross (now Nikki A.S.H.) and worked on the NXT brand for a few years. Killian Dain recently spoke with Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman The Wrestling Inc. Daily about his wife Nikki A.S.H. The former W3L Heavyweight Champion revealed that he and Nikki tried to keep their relationship a secret. This was because they didn’t want their personal relationship to be the reason behind one of them getting signed.
“We actually didn’t tell WWE we were dating,” he said. “Because we didn’t want it to be a reason why one of us would get signed or the other one would get signed. Nikki got signed and she came about six months before me, and I came over then to see her. I let Canyon Ceman know, who was the time he was working with WWE, I said, ‘I am actually going to be in Orlando if you need me to sign anything.’ Because I knew I was going to be getting signed, but I was months away because of the visa or whatever else.”
“Canyon was like, ‘okay sure, come along there’s a tryout,’ so I turn up and the first thing he says is, ‘Damo, why are you in Orlando? I was like, ‘I am seeing my fiance,’ and he was like, ‘who’s your fiance?’ I was like, ‘Nikki Storm, Nikki Cross, she’s my fiance,’ and he’s like, ‘what?’ He marches me over to Triple H, who’s on the cross-trainer going nuts. He’s like, ‘did you know they’re together?’ It ended up becoming this thing, it was hilarious.”
Big Damo and Nikki A.S.H. both wanted to get signed by WWE on the basis of their own merit. They didn’t want to get a WWE contract just because their partner was already in the company.
“We always kind of kayfabed it, we always tried to keep our relationship kind of off the public register,” he said. “Because we never wanted it to be, ‘oh well if we booked him we have to book her, or if we book her we have to book him.’ We never tried to make it like a thing, we wanted to do well off our own backs.
“I know that with Nikki’s talent, and with what she was doing, going across to Japan with Stardom and JWP, she was all over with Shimmer and Shine, I never wanted to be a hindrance for her career. She was the same. Like I started to pick up serious steam in ‘14,’15,’16, so you just do your best to try and support each other, and try not to hinder each other.”
Big Damo noted that he and Nikki didn’t feel the need to tie the knot. They had already been together for 11 years before getting married. Damo, however, said it was their parents who were the reason for them getting married.
“We got recently married, but we’d been together at that point for 11 years. 14 years in total,” he added. “I think for us, we didn’t need to be married because we knew we were going to be together. I think we kind of realized it was more important for our parents and stuff like that, to get their memories, and their photos and stuff like that. So it was like, ‘oh s–t we should really do it then?’”
Nikki A.S.H. is currently portraying the character of a masked superhero. Her husband is impressed with the gimmick as he said: “Listen, when she puts on that mask anything can happen. She’s proved that multiple times. She was very entertaining yesterday (on Raw), shall we say.”
h/t – Wrestling Inc. for the transcription
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