In the following year's tournament, the Inner City Machine Guns defeated Biff Busick and Drew Gulak in the first round, before falling to eventual tournament winners Andrew Everett and Trevor Lee in the semifinals. Swann then entered his third consecutive Battle of Los Angeles on August 29, 2015, but was defeated in the first round by Marty Scurll. The following day, he teamed with Ricochet, Angélico and Fénix in an eight-man tag team match, where they were defeated by Mount Rushmore 2.0 (Roderick Strong, Super Dragon and The Young Bucks). This turned out to be Swann's final appearance for PWG before signing with WWE. Following an Evolve show in 2014, rapper Wale sent out a tweet, stating that Swann and Uhaa Nation needed to be in WWE, calling them "the future of the business". This got the attention of Mark Henry, who arranged a WWE tryout for Swann in September 2014. A year later, it was reported that Swann had signed a developmental contract with the promotion and would be reporting to its developmental branch NXT the following month. WWE officially announced Swann's signing to NXT on October 28. Swann made his debut at an NXT house show on October 30, wrestling in a Halloween battle royal, which was won by Bayley. Swann made his singles match debut at a house show on November 20, losing to Riddick Moss. He made his first televised appearance on the January 20, 2016, episode of "NXT", losing to Baron Corbin. On the March 23 episode of "NXT", Swann was defeated by NXT Champion Finn Bálor. On October 13, Swann and No Way Jose entered the 2016 Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, defeating Drew Gulak and Tony Nese in their first round match. They were eliminated from the tournament on October 28 by The Authors of Pain (Akam and Rezar). On June 13, 2016, Swann was announced as a participant in the upcoming Cruiserweight Classic tournament. The tournament began on June 23 with Swann defeating Jason Lee in his first round match. On July 14, Swann defeated Lince Dorado in his second round match. On August 26, Swann was eliminated from the tournament in the quarterfinals by eventual winner T.J. Perkins. On the August 22 episode of "Raw", Swann was announced as part of the upcoming cruiserweight division. Swann made his "Raw" debut on September 19, wrestling in a four-way match won by Brian Kendrick and also included Cedric Alexander and Gran Metalik.