DELAND, Fla. – The sound of a power generator pales in comparison to what Mahew Beane experienced the night of August 18.


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"I’ve never heard anything like it," Beane said. "It didn’t sound like a train. It sounded like Godzilla. There was a roar, a bunch of snapping and grinding. It was terrifying."

He can remember running to the poolhouse, and 20 seconds after getting a tornado warning on his phone, it was passing above him with winds of more than 100 mph.

Thankfully, he has some friends to count on for cleanup.

"We all found out that he needed help. It wasn’t even a question," Gainesville resident Kyle Niblett said. "It was just, 'tell us what time to show up, give us the address, and we’ll be there.'"

A group of people, united -- It’s kind of what they do.

"NXT United," to be exact. It’s a name they’ve adopted over the years: a collection of WWE super fans that have been attending shows for its NXT brand all around Florida.

"We just got together, and we’re like, 'let’s make this a group to where we can help others and we can promote our love of professional wrestling together,'" Niblett said.

"To be able to sit next to somebody week after week in the same building and be able to talk to them about it, it builds something that’s really hard to build somewhere else," Mathew's 18-year-old son Owen said. "It genuinely does feel like a family." 

Normally, they’d gather after events and hang out weekly. But this year, the pandemic hasn’t really allowed them to attend shows together. So here they are, lifting branches and clearing trees around the neighborhood. Members from as far Jacksonville and Clearwater making the drive to pitch in for a friend in need.

"We’re family. It seems like when you hear it maybe an advertisement, but when something like this happens, and they're willing to drive from around the state, you have to reassess that and go, these are like family," Mathew said. A family joined by a love for theatricality, reuniting to help one of their own face his new reality.

"Just to see them after five months, I missed them," Niblett said. "And just to see what he’s going through, wrestling can wait, you know what I mean? Because it’s bigger than that. And I think that’s what the group is all about."