Tavion Heights Credits Pro Wrestling NOAH Excursion With Career Growth Ahead of North American Title Shot at Great American Bash

Tavion Heights is heading into one of the biggest matches of his career this weekend, and he says a stint in Japan last year played a major role in getting him there.

Heights is set to challenge Myles Borne for the NXT North American Championship at the Great American Bash — a shot at his first title in WWE. In a recent interview with Denise Salcedo, the rising NXT star opened up about how his excursion to Pro Wrestling NOAH reshaped his approach to the sport.

“Leaps and bounds. Leaps and bounds,” Heights said when asked about the impact of the experience. “I can say solely just from a language viewpoint, communication there is difficult. You literally go from speaking English, a common vernacular, to having to speak wrestling with someone.”

Heights described the challenge of working with NOAH’s roster — an accomplished group of athletes who operate with a completely different style and ring philosophy — as a forcing function for his own development. “Me coming over as an NXT wrestler, I had to stand out, I had to do my thing,” he said. “Man, the levels of growth was, I can’t even tell you.”

He compared wrestling to a language all its own, drawing on his amateur background to explain the instinctive rhythm of high-level in-ring work. “There’s a flow state you go into when you’re wrestling — it’s like a literal dance if you will. I got a chance to perfect my dance.”

Beyond the interpersonal communication, Heights said the trip broadened his technical toolkit and changed how he thinks about ring geography. “In Japan they use the ring entirely differently, and now I can bring that back and mesh it with my style and make something unique from it.”

Heights was one of several NXT talents — including Josh Briggs, Charlie Dempsey, and Harlem Lewis — sent to NOAH as part of WWE’s excursion program. Since returning, he spent time as part of the No Quarter Catch Crew before recently breaking out on his own. Saturday’s title match against former stablemate Borne at the Great American Bash will be the first real measure of just how much that Japanese experience has translated into results.