Nick Mitchell

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Nicholas Cole "Nick" Mitchell (born November 9, 1982)^[2][3] is an American professional wrestler who is best known for his work in World Wrestling Entertainment as Mitch of the Spirit Squad on the Raw brand.

[edit] American football career

After attending Blinn College for two semesters, Mitchell joined the Beaumont Drillers of the National Indoor Football League in 2003.^[4] After a season with them, he attended a National Football League combine, but was told to go home after officials found out he had been expelled from college for fighting.^[4]

[edit] Professional wrestling career

[edit] Tough Enough and developmental territories

Shortly afterwards, Mitchell took part in the 4th season of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)'s reality series Tough Enough in 2004.^[1][5][4] Though he didn't win the competition he was still signed to a WWE developmental contract and assigned to farm territory Deep South Wrestling.^[5][4] He began wrestling under the name "Big Time" Nick Mitchell, and wrestled against the likes of Kid Kash and Johnny Parisi.^[5] He later suffered a knee injury, and although it was feared that he had torn his ACL, he was moved to Ohio Valley Wrestling where he joined The Spirit Squad.^[5] Within days of his debut, however, the Squad was called up to the main WWE roster.^[5]

[edit] Raw

When The Spirit Squad were called up to the main Raw roster, Mitchell was still rehabbing from the legit knee injury and was relegated to the status of ringside observer for the team's first few weeks.^[1] On January 23, 2006 they had their television debut, appearing on Raw and helping Jonathan Coachman win a Royal Rumble qualifying match against Jerry "The King" Lawler by performing cheers for the Coach and distracting Lawler.^[6] They later became a part of the on-going feud between WWE chairman Vince McMahon and Shawn Michaels. The heel McMahon brought in the Squad to perform disrespectful cheers about Michaels and attack him on numerous occasions, including placing them in multiple handicap matches.^[7][8]

They also continued wrestling in the tag team division, and on April 3, on Raw, won the World Tag Team Championship when Kenny and Mikey, with outside help from the other three Squad members, defeated Kane and The Big Show.^[9][10] After winning the titles The Spirit Squad defended the titles under the Freebird Rule.

Three weeks later, McMahon signed another Handicap match, with the Spirit Squad facing Michaels.^[11] The match never started, however; instead the Spirit Squad brutally beat down Michaels, ripping apart his ring attire and kayfabe shattering his knee with a steel chair.^[11] McMahon then called Triple H to the ring to attack Michaels with a sledgehammer shot; however, Kenny snatched the sledgehammer away, disrespecting Triple H, which led to him attacking the group.^[11] Triple H and Michaels revived D-Generation X (DX) and as a team began a feud with the Spirit Squad.^[12][13] DX played various sophomoric pranks on the Squad and the McMahons, as well as defeating the Spirit Squad in handicap tag matches at Vengeance and a clean sweep in an elimination handicap match at Saturday Night's Main Event.^{[13][14][15][16]}

At the same time as their feud with DX and their alignment with McMahon, the team also wrestled other teams in Raw's' tag division over their World Tag Team Title. The Squad successfully defended the titles against the teams of Jim Duggan and Eugene,Charlie Haas and Viscera, and Snitsky and Val Venis,^[14] The then entered a lengthy feud with The Highlanders, whom they eventually defeated to retain the titles at Unforgiven.^[17][18]

The Squad as a whole later began a losing streak with separate members losing singles matches to Ric Flair on consecutive episodes of Raw.^[19][20] After Johnny and Mikey lost to the debuting Cryme Tyme on October 16,^[21] Kenny started yelling at the other members of the Spirit Squad in the ring.^[21] Tensions further escalated the next week, after a second consecutive loss to Cryme Tyme.^[22] After the defeat Kenny attacked Mikey then announced that he would take on Flair, and win, since no other member of the group could do it.^[22] Later in the night he succeeded with help from the rest of the Squad, despite Flair bringing a number of fellow "Legends" (Dusty Rhodes, Sgt. Slaughter, and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper) to the ring with him to even the odds.^[22] It was then decided that Flair and one of the legends, of the fans choosing, would wrestle the Squad at Cyber Sunday for the Tag Team Championship.^[22] At Cyber Sunday the fans chose Piper, and he and Flair defeated Kenny and Mikey to win the title.^[23] At the time of their loss the team had held the title for 216 days, the longest since Owen Hart and The British Bulldog held it for 241 days in 1996 and 1997.

The group was "killed off" on the November 27 Raw after they were defeated in a 5 on 3 match by DX and Flair.^[24] After a triple submission, and being buried in a backstage segment, DX dumped them into a large crate stamped "OVW, Louisville, Kentucky".^[24]

Mitchell was released from his WWE contract on May 15, 2007. ^[25]

[edit] Mixed martial arts

After being released by WWE, Mitchell began training for a career in mixed martial arts (MMA) under Rocky Long.^[4]

[edit] Personal life

In 2007, he and his girlfriend, Torrie Wilson, started a business together, called Officially Jaded, a fashion boutique.^[26] The couple began dating in mid-2006.^[4] Mitchell has since said that he feels that he was held back in WWE when he began dating Wilson, as he "was a young, fresh meat WWE guy who 'didn't deserve' the most beautiful diva". They broke up after a heated argument backstage in real life.^[27]

He graduated from The Woodlands High School in 2001.^[4] Mitchell played four years of varsity American football in high school, and received a full scholarship to Northwestern State University.^[4] During his freshman season, however, he was expelled for getting into a fight.^[4] Mitchell then spent two semesters at Blinn College in Bryan, Texas.^[4]

As a professional wrestler, Mitchell suffered numerous injuries, including damaging a disc in his neck and injuring his knee, as well as suffering a broken nose three times within one month.^[27]

[edit] Championships and accomplishments

• World Wrestling Entertainment

• World Tag Team Championship (1 time) – as a member of the Spirit Squad^[10]

[edit] See also

• Spirit Squad

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Professional wrestling portal