NXT Superstar Tavion Heights plus an Epic Monday Night Raw & Jaÿ Z at Sofi | No-Contest Wrestling

Tavion Heights placed seventh at the Olympic Games and walked away feeling like something was missing. It took some soul searching on No Contest Wrestling for him to explain what it was: the crowd.

"I realized that I love the crowd reaction more than anything," Heights told O'Shea Jackson Jr. and TJ Jefferson. He described wrestling in foreign countries where fans showed up with horns and noisemakers, and matches tied in the final 30 seconds. "That's my bubble. That's where I want to live." When he went looking for an environment where the crowd gives you that energy around the clock, the answer was obvious. "That's WWE."

Before Heights came through the door, the hosts warmed up with Halloween costumes. Jackson wore a Pinky's Records and Discs shirt from Next Friday, ordered through the official Ice Cube store on TikTok Shop, which promptly told him it could not deliver. One call to his mom and one call to his dad later, the shirt showed up the next day. TJ brought a Rocky robe for a man who has never seen Rocky, and has tickets to an outdoor screening to fix that. TJ also defended his top 15 nepo baby wrestlers list against a commenter who insisted the Bloodline and The Rock should have been combined. TJ walked through the family tree. The commenter replied that they were all the same family to him. "I led you to water," TJ said. "It ain't my fault if you do not drink."

Body lock or bust

Heights wrestled Greco-Roman, where touching the legs draws a penalty. That is where his motto came from. At a time when Greco-Roman was in danger of being pulled from Olympic wrestling, he said the athletes felt they had to win in an entertaining way to prove the sport deserved to stay. "I'm gonna fail or I'm gonna throw the kitchen sink and body lock, throw this dude on his neck," he said. "You going to see some glory."

He did not start out wanting to wrestle. His mom was not letting him into "them leotards" in sixth grade, and he was a diehard defensive end who loved hitting quarterbacks. Then came an offer to compete in Austria. "They don't even play football in London," he joked. By 17 he had been to six countries.

As a kid, he and his brother tore up the basement watching wrestling. They related to Booker T. Kane's entrance meant an immediate brawl. And Boogeyman was the guy. "He's eating real worms, dude."

The Olympic standard, and a Tokyo bubble

Heights called making the Olympics a catalyst that demanded permanent change. "I represented this country. I got to carry myself and such. I got to have the utmost integrity," he said. He holds himself accountable to past and future Olympians, which means training year round "as a lifestyle."

The 2020 Games in Tokyo were not the experience he imagined. The American wrestlers shared one hotel, were allowed outside for one hour a day, and walked a one-mile strip with armed guards making sure nobody wandered off. No fans in the arena only sharpened what he was missing. "I didn't have the fans raging. I didn't have the people behind me."

The gift and the curse

Heights said his amateur background cuts both ways. The combat experience and body awareness taught him how to land and roll. The pacing does not translate. "As an Olympic wrestler, it's like I'm going to dominate this guy as quick as possible," he said. "That's not entertaining. That doesn't sell." He had to learn to invite the fans "in on the ride with you."

He said Tavion Heights was "minted in Japan." Wrestling opponents who spoke no English meant there was no leaning on a veteran partner. "The only people keeping this together is me and you." While there he learned from the Great Muta, who paid him a compliment he called unmatched: his belly to belly was unique, and the intensity he hits it with cannot be replicated. "Don't lose yourself," was the lesson.

The belly to belly was always the plan. It was his best move in Olympic wrestling, the one he went to every time he was down on points. "I knew when I came to WWE I knew what my finish was. That was the one thing that was non-negotiable."

Heights has not learned the secrets of the mist. He has been on the receiving end of it, though. A few weeks ago in Greensboro, North Carolina, his match with Myles Borne ended in a no contest, and the two brawled into another match and both caught a blast of blue mist. It stayed on his skin for days.

Pizza tosses, dream opponents and the coaches

Asked about Oba Femi's pizza toss, Heights said nothing he has taken is worse. "You get flattened like a pizza." He is the guy who will go through a ladder or try to break the metal, and he has only taken the pizza toss once, but it is still the worst thing he has taken.

His wish list starts with Jacob Fatu. "I match energy," Heights said, and he expects Fatu to match his. "It'll be fireworks." Julius Creed is the other, thanks to shared history from Olympic wrestling. "He got strength and he got throws. I got them too for days."

He described his first six to eight months in Orlando as being "the most humble guy in the room" and soaking up everything before his Level Up debut. TJ compared it to Kurt Angle learning that a real-life undefeated mindset does not fit a show. Heights agreed: nobody wants a five-second squash every time.

The Performance Center text he does not want to get comes from Terry Taylor. "Big T is gonna be like, 'All right, let's start from the beginning.'" Matt Bloom, he said, is "head cheese," but a meeting with Bloom does not rattle him. That opened the door for TJ's story from his college days in Pittsburgh, where Bloom worked the door at a bar, and how years later TJ realized Prince Albert was the same guy thanks to a panther tattoo on his thigh.

Myles Borne and Halloween Havoc

The main business is Halloween Havoc on Saturday, October 31, where Heights faces his former friend and fishing partner Borne. Heights did not soften it. "That ain't my dog no more, man."

He believes Borne is afraid to stand across from him man to man, which is why Borne attacked him at Heatwave and again at the Performance Center. He is grateful the fight is now sanctioned. He would prefer to tie Borne in a knot and win clean, but the stipulation calls for weapons. "I'm ready to pick up whatever I can get my hands on," he said. "I don't think I'm going to hesitate."

The hosts helpfully supplied options: a jack-o'-lantern, a prosthetic leg in honor of Montez Ford, Jaida Parker and her car in the NXT parking lot, Wren Sinclair herself, a frozen iguana, a tombstone, and a sack of candy corn. Heights liked the Parker idea. He said Sinclair "ain't cool with Myles" either.

Watch Havoc at 7 p.m. Eastern, 4 p.m. Pacific on The CW and ESPN Unlimited, and on Netflix internationally.

The bar fight, the title and the gear

For the show's bar fight question, Heights built his crew around Jackson Drake as the deliberate distraction, his dog Julius Creed, and Tony D'Angelo. "I need that stockiness," he said of D'Angelo.

After Havoc, he is done with tag teams. "I've closed that chapter," he said, citing Charlie Dempsey and now Borne for doing him dirty. "I know that I can be a singles champ and I am a singles champ." He has a message for NXT champion Grayson Waller, who has been talking a lot: "We punch up around here," Heights said, adding that Waller's title could be the one he comes for.

His mismatched sleeves started with a love of fringe, then NFL tape and NBA sleeves, then a look in the mirror and a question. "What if we did the opposite leg?" Now the colors are offset and mix and matched. "It feels like me and it is me."

For his time machine WrestleMania main events, Heights chose the 1-2-3 Kid, Kane, Kurt Angle, Eddie Guerrero and Shawn Michaels. On Guerrero: "I've never seen more intricate spots than Eddie Guerrero."

Jay-Z at SoFi

TJ went to Jay-Z's Saturday show at SoFi Stadium with Wilmer Valderrama, his third decade seeing Jay with him after the Hollywood Bowl with Mary J. Blige in 2008 and the Cosmopolitan opening with Coldplay on New Year's Eve 2011. TJ packed a whistle in case Too Short appeared. Too Short appeared. Snoop and Dre came out too, and TJ, who grew up in Altoona and Pittsburgh and now lives 15 minutes from Inglewood, got emotional watching Snoop's smile at the Inglewood line.

His verdict on the complaints that Jay did not bring out enough guests: "You're buying tickets to see Jay-Z. It's not Jay-Z and friends." He loved the closing speech about algorithms, too. The only knock was getting in and out of SoFi, which he called a nightmare.

Monday Night Raw

Raw was a great one, both hosts agreed. A planned number one contenders match between Becky Lynch and Stephanie Vaquer became Lynch against Liv Morgan for the title after Vaquer was pulled. Lynch caught Morgan out of Oblivion and hit the Manhandle Slam, the crowd went insane, and Roxanne Perez and Raquel Rodriguez broke it up for a disqualification. Morgan retains and heads to Saudi Arabia to face Chelsea Green, whose Baywatch audition got a full endorsement.

Bayley beat Lyra Valkyria in a no disqualification match the hosts compared to how AEW lets its women go. A powerbomb off the apron onto a garbage can and an elbow through a table were among the spots. Bayley winning was "the right call." Iyo Sky and Raquel Rodriguez delivered another fun one, and Chad Gable and Dragon Lee took on Big Cass and Ethan Page.

Sami Zayn opened with a 20-minute heel promo that felt like early-2000s Raw, and kept Trick Williams' name in his mouth. Je'Von Evans got a title match at 22 and nearly convinced TJ he would win it, until Penta's music hit. Now Penta and Evans have a tag title shot coming against The Vision, with Logan Paul's brace leaving the lineup unclear.

The episode closed with Jackson explaining why going up the Eiffel Tower at night made no sense to him. "If I'm in it, I can't see it anymore." Then he was off to the Chinese Theatre to watch the Japanese Godzilla.