on june 1, 2010, it was announced that cottonwood would be part of the second season of "wwe nxt", with john morrison as his storyline mentor. he debuted on the june 8 episode of "nxt", teaming with morrison to defeat titus o'neil and zack ryder. christianson's performance in the "talk the talk" challenge on the july 6 edition of "nxt" earned him a clip on the following episode of e! television's episode of "the soup" in the "what your boyfriend is watching" segment.