Tyler Breeze believes one of his most popular gimmicks was killed by accident.
Prince Pretty was recently a guest on In The Weeds podcast. Among other things, he told the origin story of the Fashion Files skits with his former partner Fandango, that became widely popular at one point before being pulled off the air abruptly.
According to the former NXT star, the gimmick was not something that was pitched by writers. The whole thing was born out of the duo’s desire to do something to get back on TV. They used spare cameras available in the social media department to film some early vignettes they released online.
Fandango and Breeze got their wish as the duo were put back on SmackDown when the skits went viral. Though, despite the big numbers on social media, Vince McMahon was seemingly never a fan of the whole thing:
“To this day, I think it got cancelled by accident because there was a pay-per-view coming up, and we weren’t booked on it, but they had a Fashion Files. So Vince said, ‘Why do we have one?
Like, why are we doing this? Because they don’t have a match on the pay-per-view, so why are we doing it?’”
That Was The End Of It: Tyler Breeze
Tyler Breeze explained that it was the SmackDown head writer at the time who put them on the show. McMahon originally questioned their presence on the episode, but decided to keep the skits going upon learning that it was their best-performing social media video of the week.
After the incident of the PPV, however, the members of the creative team freaked out. They misinterpreted the boss’ directions and killed the whole thing:
“And I think all the writers freaked out, and they went, oh God, he hates it. Never do it again. Then we never did another one after that. And that was the end of it.
And I was pretty sure it was just a mistake. I’m pretty sure he just said don’t do it before a pay-per-view where they’re not wrestling.”
Overall, the Fashion Police gimmick lasted about eight months before being retired quietly. You can check out their first SmackDown vignette below: