SAnitY was a Professional Wrestling Power Stable in WWE performing in their SmackDown brand consisting of Eric Young, Alexander Wolfe (Axel Tischer), Nikki Cross (Nicola Glencross) and Killian Dain (Damian Mackle). The stable also formerly had Sawyer Fulton (Jacob Southwick), who was Put on a Bus after an injury and later released.
After a series of vignettes
aired on episodes of NXT, it was announced that SAnitY would be making their debut in the Dusty Rhodes Classic, though no members of the stable had been revealed. They debuted in the first round of the DRC, with Alexander Wolfe and Sawyer Fulton (the former a new addition to NXT and the latter a long-time jobber, who had been teaming together for live events) defeating Tye Dillinger and Bobby Roode. After the match, the other two members revealed themselves as Eric Young, the leader of the group, and Nikki Cross, the sole female member and also the most visibly insane.
The team progressed to the second round of the DRC, but were eliminated by TM-61. In November 2016, Sawyer Fulton sustained an injury and would no longer appear as part of the team, which was addressed by Young stomping and kicking Fulton's jacket. Instead, SAnitY began an arc where they targeted Tye Dillinger, wishing to recruit him to replace Fulton. Young made his pitch to Dillinger, who rejected him and attacked Young and Wolfe until Big Damo (another recent NXT recruit) attacked Tye to save Young. Young then offered Fulton's jacket to Damo, who accepted it, and would soon be renamed Killian Dain.
Now back to their original number, SAnitY went after Dillinger, while Nikki Cross went after Asuka for the NXT Women's Championship. The group would repeatedly battle Dillinger, Roderick Strong, No Way Jose, Ruby Riot and Asuka, with Dillinger eventually defeating Young in a steel cage match, and Cross repeatedly losing to Asuka. After Dillinger went to the main roster, SAnitY would battle the Authors of Pain repeatedly for the NXT Tag Team Championships, eventually winning at TakeOver: Brooklyn 3.
In 2018, the stable was added to the SmackDown Live roster as part of that year's post-WrestleMania 34 Superstar Shakeup. However, after a feud with The New Day for the SmackDown Tag Team Championship, they went Out of Focus, not appearing again until Survivor Series 2018, as part of Team SmackDown, with whom they scored the only victory of the night for the brand.
In 2019, Sawyer Fulton debuted at Impact Wrestling as "Mad Man" Fulton, a henchman for Sami Callihan in oVe. In the WWE, meanwhile, Eric Young was drafted to Raw during the Superstar Shake-up. This, coupled with Alexander Wolfe teasing leaving the company, disbanded the stable for good. Wolfe was later sent to NXT UK, Dain to the main NXT, and Nikki Cross, like Young, was assigned to Raw, where both were re-written as essentially new characters.
As of 2023, Cross is the only member of the group still under contract with WWE. note
SAnitY contains examples of the following tropes:
- Artifact Title: While the A (Alexander Wolfe), nit (Nikki Cross), and Y (Eric Young) still work, the S was for original member Sawyer Fulton.
- Ax-Crazy: All of them.
- Ironic Name: A stable called SAnitY with four members that have very obviously lost all of theirs.
- Leitmotif: Notably, when the members worked solo, they had their own nation-stereotyped song taking cues from the main stable theme "Controlled Chaos". Dain's theme was a Djent and Irish flute song called "Beast of Belfast", and Nikki Cross had a Dubstep song called "Glasgow Cross", which prominently features maniacal screaming and laughter.
- Multinational Team: SAnitY originally featured Eric Young (Canadian), Alexander Wolfe (German), Nikki Cross (Scottish), and Sawyer Fulton (American). After a few weeks, Fulton was removed from the group due to a real life injury. He was replaced by Killian Dain (Irish).
- Out of Focus: After being called up to the main roster, they didn't do much, and practically disappeared from television after Extreme Rules 2018, barring a one-off appearance as part of the 10-man Smackdown Team for Survivor Series 2018. Hell, none of the male members of the stable appeared at the Royal Rumble 2019.
- Wild Card: Started by harassing Roderick Strong, who for most of his time in NXT has been about as white-meat as a babyface gets. Have since moved on to feuding with brutal heel tag team The Authors of Pain, and now seem to have set their sights on screwing up... whatever Adam Cole and The Undisputed Era were planning on doing. This wouldn't be notable except for the fact that they never seemed to have a pivotal moment that made them faces. Hell, Eric Young completely disappeared for a while and the group was 'together' but not really — and even now, Nikki Cross is often seen out doing her own thing. They either have an aim that only they know, or they don't have one at all. Honestly, either one would fit with their characters, so the details of their plan are anyone's guess.
- Ascended Extra: He was a nondescript jobber under his real name when he started, his first TV match being against Samoa Joe.
- Beard of Evil: Proudly holds a large beard and is purely insane and/or evil.
- The Brute
- Funny Background Event: He has a habit of randomly dancing around and kicking the air like he's in a mosh pit during promos and when the stable get into the ring.
- Acrofatic: Just look at him at WarGames. He even did a Van Terminator jump! He's also been seen using suicide dives to the floor through the middle rope. Keep in mind, Dain's about 320 pounds.
- Arch-Enemy: In WCPW, Rampage Brown.
- Beard of Barbarism: In WCPW, Joe Hendry mocked him for it, claiming it makes him look like Hagrid.
- Beard of Evil: Proudly holds a large beard and is purely insane and/or evil.
- The Brute: Well over 300 pounds.
- Carpet of Virility: Well, just look at it. And there's more where that came from on the other side. He's gotten a few "shave your back!" chants.
- Establishing Character Moment: He appears from offscreen and hits Rich Swann very hard, at which point you get to see how enormous he is.
- Evil All Along: Initially booked as something of an Anti-Hero / Token Evil Team Mate for Pacitti Club in WCPW, it turned out that his forcing his way into the position of Jack's representative was a ploy by Adam Blampied; he was on Adam's side the whole time, an ace in the hole.
- Expy: He debuted on NXT basically the exact same way Braun Strowman did on the main roster - as a late addition to a Power Stable where one of the original members had gone down due to an injury. The fact that he and Strowman are similar in appearance and body type just reinforces this - although, in an ironic twist, Dain bears an even closer facial resemblance to Bray Wyatt than Strowman does. He even uses a running senton like Bray. It's almost to the point that you wonder, had Dain been in NXT a couple of years earlier, whether he would have been the one pegged to take the open spot in The Wyatt Family as opposed to Strowman.
- Face–Heel Turn: In WCPW, he turned on Jack the Jobber during his title match against Rampage, aligning with B-X.
- Fighting Irish: Hails from Belfast.
- Finishing Move: The Ulster Plantation, an inverted sitdown piledriver.
- Happily Married: With Nikki Cross on January 17, 2019.
- Insistent Terminology: In WCPW, he claims to weigh 23 stone. Not 322 pounds, not 146 kilograms; 23 stone.
- Loser Leaves Town: In WCPW he lost against Alberto El Patron in a career match. Subverted as he did appear at WCPW Refuse to Lose to try to save Adam Blampied and he did a match against Joe Coffey which he loses.
- The Mentor: Finn Bálor had a hand in Dain's training in Ireland. Dain then passed the baton by being one of Nikki Cross's trainers.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: A 320+ pound angry Fighting Irish whose name is Killian. Noooooooo thanks.
- Put Ona Bus: At WCPW True Legacy, he fought Martin Kirby and lost. When he shook Kirby's hand to congratulate him, Pacitti tried to fire him, but Damo said he was resigning because he'd just signed up with NXT.
- Red Baron: "The Beast of Belfast". It's even the name of his theme in WWE.
- Swallow the Key: He ate the key at WarGames after Alexander Wolfe brought various weapons and plunder inside the cage.
- Ur-Example: First ever WCPW Heavyweight Champion.
- Wild Card: In WCPW, he generally acted in a brutal, heelish manner, but was aligned with Jack the Jobber and Pacitti Club (almost against Jack's wishes) against Adam Blampied and Rampage. But all was not as it seemed.
- Wrestling Monster: He's huge, powerful, durable, and dominant in the ring.
- The Brute: As the tallest and largest member, he fills this role.
- Darker and Edgier: Slowly got there as his frustration grew with continuously jobbing alongside a tag team partner (Angelo Dawkins) who seemed to be unflappable about it.
- Full tilt with his reappearance as a member of the faction.
- Dreadlock Warrior: As a member of the stable.
- Expy: A large, young man raised in rural America that was a multiple-time collegiate wrestling award winner, recruited by Jim Ross out of college and has the real name of "Jacob"? Sounds a bit like Jack Swagger.
- He and Angelo Dawkins could've been seen as one to the Minnesota Stretching Crew, as they had a similar aesthetic and adopted an amateur wrestling gimmick.
- His newer appearance brings Braun Strowman to mind.
- Farm Boy: Originally.
- No Doubt the Years Have Changed Me: Well, more like months, but just look at him now in the picture to the right as a member of the stable compared to his previous look◊. Even when the announcers told you that it was Sawyer Fulton, it was a bit hard to believe if you remembered him as the guy pictured in the link.
- Power Stable: Aside of this stable, Fulton is part of oVe (Ohio Versus Everyone), with Sami Callihan and Irish Airborne (Dave and Jake Crist).
- Put on a Bus: He suffered a long-term injury and was subsequently kicked out of the faction.
- The Pete Best: Ended up becoming this for the stable, as a recent episode of NXT saw the stable come down to the ring without him, then had Eric Young make a point of stomping and spitting on his jacket before hurling it out of the ring. This was because Fulton had suffered a legit injury - he was replaced not long afterward by the massive Irishman known as Killian Dain.
