During Saturday's WWE NXT Halloween Havoc a short video aired that showed what appeared to show T-Bar’s Retribution mask on fire. Shawn Michaels was asked about the video following the event:

"It’s not like we don’t see what goes on out there in the social media world and the shaking of the fist at different things that were done with different characters over the years and we do what we can here creatively to ‘nudge, nudge, wink, wink,’ we see you and we hear you. I would love to be able to take credit for that, but I have a pretty good head writer here that comes up with some pretty snazzy stuff in Johnny Russo. That was something he mentioned, just a quick tease and I thought, ‘that’s fantastic.’ I guess I’ve already given a bunch away. When you get a talent that is very talented, and we felt was just coming into his own in NXT prior. The larger perspective, the pandemic, and everything that happened, there were quick changes, we lost a lot of people and over time, they found out, ‘we’re not sure how they’re going to finish the story they’re in.’ Anytime they are willing to allow us to have the opportunity to have them back, we look at, not in a bad way, we find that like a fun new toy. To be able to take guys with that much talent. One of the things we certainly try to do is not insult the fans and not pretend like somebody wasn’t who they were a short time ago, just connect the dots and get you thinking and teasing it and making you feel like what’s going to happen and then, down the road, we surprise you, and you think it’s cool and it works."

T-Bar tweeted the following…

If you kill him, he will win.
Become vengeance.
Become wrath.

— T-BAR (@TBARRetribution) October 23, 2022