Shane Thorne
Shane Veryzer[1] (born 24 September 1985) is an Australian professional wrestler currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the SmackDown brand under the ring name Shane Thorne . He was previously known as Slapjack as part of the faction Retribution.
He is also known for his work in Pro Wrestling Noah under the Shane Haste ring name, where, as part of The Mighty Don’t Kneel with partner Mikey Nicholls, he is a former two-time GHC Tag Team Champion. He also competed for Ring of Honor (ROH) and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla (PWG) in the United States. He signed with WWE in 2016 and was assigned to the NXT brand, where he was given the Shane Thorne ring name. In early 2020, Thorne debuted on Raw, and in August of that year was repackaged as Slapjack – a hockey mask wearing member of Retribution.
On 23 February 2011, Haste made his debut in Pro Wrestling Noah as he had a tryout match against his teammate Mikey Nicholls.[11] A month after the try-out match, both men started to work full-time with the Japanese promotion. On 7 July, Haste and Nicholls, known together as The Mighty Don’t Kneel (TMDK), won the GHC Tag Team Championship after they defeated Toru Yano and Takashi Iizuka.[12][13][14] At the end of 2013, the Tokyo Sports magazine named Haste and Nicholls the tag team of the year, making them the first foreign team to win the award since Stan Hansen and Vader in 1998.[15] They lost the title to Maybach Taniguchi and Takeshi Morishima on 25 January 2014.[16][17][18]
They regained the title from Dangan Yankies (Masato Tanaka and Takashi Sugiura) on 10 January 2015.[19] They lost the title to K.E.S. (Davey Boy Smith Jr. and Lance Archer) on 11 February.[20] On 28 December, Noah announced that Haste and Nicholls would leave the promotion following their contracts expiring at the end of the year.[21] On 11 February 2016, Noah announced that Haste and Nicholls would return to the promotion the following month to take part in a five-show-long farewell tour, entitled “Departure to the World”.[22] Their final Noah match took place on 10 March and saw them defeat Naomichi Marufuji and Mitsuhiro Kitamiya.[23][24]
After starting out in Noah, Haste returned to the United States and compete on Ring of Honor (ROH) in February 2012.[25] He and Nicholls won the Rise and Prove Tournament, defeating two other teams to qualify for a match against The Briscoe Brothers (Jay Briscoe and Mark Briscoe).[26] At the Showdown in the Sun iPPV on 30 March, Haste and Nicholls lost to The Briscoe Brothers in a Proving Ground match.[27]
Also in February 2012, Haste and Nicholls wrestled television matches for Championship Wrestling from Hollywood (CWFH).[28] Also in March 2012, Haste and Nicholls started wrestling for Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW),[29] during their stint there, they were defeated in a title match for the OVW Southern Tag Team Championship by Jessie Godderz and Rudy Switchblade.[30]
On 20 December 2014, Haste and Nicholls made their debut for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), when they, along with Naomichi Marufuji, were revealed as Toru Yano’s tag team partners at Wrestle Kingdom 9 on 4 January 2015.[31] At the event, the four defeated Suzuki-gun (Davey Boy Smith Jr, Lance Archer, Shelton X Benjamin, and Takashi Iizuka) in an eight-man tag team match.[32]
WWE
