NXT star Tyler Breeze recently spoke with the folks at AfterBuzz TV about a number of topics. Below are some highlights.
On Xavier Woods: “I came to a crossroads at NXT [with my character Mike Dalton]…And fortunately for me, [Xavier Woods] is a genius when it comes to technology stuff. Saying he is a genius at one thing, he’s kind of a genius at all things. And at the time he had somehow got ahold of some video editing software…He was figuring out how to edit these really cool videos. He basically said, “We’re going to turn this around. I’m going to come over today and come up with like 5 or 10 characters. We’re going to throw them at everybody and say, ‘What about this one? What about this one?’ I came up with three different ones. One was a snowboarder. One was a darker version of Mike Dalton, which I was at the time. And one was Tyler Breeze. As we were filming it, we were laughing our heads off…but I had eight other characters ready to go. I ended up getting a couple emails back saying, ‘You might have something with this Tyler Breeze thing. None of it would have happened if [Xavier Woods] hadn’t made these videos. And he’s done a lot for other people down here too.”
On if his character is inspired by Zoolander: “Everyone thinks it must have been inspired by Zoolander, but the funny thing is it really wasn’t until later. I kind of based it off the people I had seen come in and try out. There’s a lot of people in a lot of different industries that do that. There’s people on the outside that come in and think, “Nah It can’t be that hard. I can do this.” They were actors and models and they would try to give wrestling a try and they would happen to say some funny things. At the time I was Mike Dalton. I was very much a wrestler and nobody really wanted to see it. And I thought, why not go entirely the opposite. I’m going to wrestle like I don’t know how to wrestle, I’m just this outsider looking in and from there it kind of turned into that he was a model…from there, I did this face at the end of interviews and then I started watching some Zoolander stuff and switched my voice a little bit. As I started doing more interviews it kind of turned into more of Ben Stiller from Dodgeball than it actually was Zoolander. I was this loose cannon that would get angry at anything and everything you asked me was the stupidest question I’ve ever heard in my life.”
On his wrestling goals prior to getting signed by WWE: “My goal was always WWE. When I was a kid, at 6-years-old, and that was what my dad showed me was WWE. I didn’t even know that any other wrestling exited. I didn’t know that WCW existed, I didn’t know that Japan existed. I just assumed that WWE was everywhere and that was the goal. As I went through school, everything was geared towards WWE. Once I went and trained with Lance Storm…he had this extensive collection of Japanese stuff and I started learning there’s so much more than WWE. But still my personal goal was to go to WWE.”
On training with Lance Storm: “I couldn’t ask for better training. In three months he prepared me for everything I was going to encounter. I trained with him in 2007, so he was fresh off of WWE. He had connections still and he went out of his way to talk to everybody about money, about working with agents, that etiquette was very important. I still look to him for advice on a lot of different things.”
On underrated talent in NXT: “Everybody on twitter always uses the word “underrated” or “overrated.” There are a lot of deserving people. I don’t want to say underrated, but people you maybe haven’t seen yet and that’s Dash Wilder and Scott Dawson. And we have a lot of new people in that you can see that they’re going to be good, but we have a good crop of people from top to bottom. Another one I’ll add to the list is Tye Dillinger.”
On some of his favorite matches: “There have been several that are the cornerstones or milestones for me, that have taken me to different levels. That first Takeover with Sami Zayn, that moved me to a different bracket. I’ve gotten to work with Zayn and Neville a lot. When Hideo came in, I really liked all the stuff I did with Hideo. He is such a star and has international appeal. He’s not just an NXT guy, he’s coming in and there was a lot of buzz with him. He showed that I could hang with someone that kicks the crap out of you essentially. Now even moving onto Finn [Balor], he’s another international superstar.”
On the Elimination Chamber and NXT talent being involved: “It’s good for everything. It’s intriguing. Everything in the last couple of months, with Zayn coming up and showing that he can hang with Cena. Neville just freshly debuting showing that he can hang with Cena and then we’ve got Owens coming up and laying out Cena. He’s creating a lot of intrigue. Heading into this PPV I think it’s less about the individuals [debuting] and more about NXT. It’s showing that NXT is WWE. It’s not below it. It’s side by side…We’ve had guys like Rhyno coming in, like Tommy Dreamer coming in. NXT has got this feel to it. It’s very similar to that thing ECW had. [The fans] are very loyal and they feel like NXT is cutting edge. The fact that I’m getting to be in the opportunities that I’m in…the fact we’re getting to do that is cool.”
