Kemo
11-02-2021, 07:49 PM
In an appearance on Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette, former WWE star Tyler Breeze reflected on never getting a big push during his eleven years with the promotion. Ultimately, it didn’t really bother him as he never saw the need to win titles and took more pride in his co-workers being excited to work with him.
“It’s funny hearing some people because they’re like ‘oh man, you’re career was never anything’ or ‘you never made it to a certain level’ or ‘you didn’t win any titles’ or whatever,” Breeze said. “It was never about that. That’s one thing that I was taught by Lance (Storm). The titles are just titles. The best people don’t necessarily have the title. Some people need the titles to go to a certain level and be a star. The titles are to help you get to a certain place of ‘the fans really like this guy, they’re buying his merch, let’s get him some titles’ or whatever.
“But never once have I ever held my value or my credibility on if I get titles or wins. I loved being able to watch and if someone walked in and looked at the card on the wall and went ‘oh I’m working Breeze tonight. Awesome.’ That to me is the biggest badge of honor. That’s the biggest thing, that my peers respect and they see they’re working me, they smile and say ‘this is going to be fun.'”
Breeze also explained why he hasn’t returned to wrestling since his release from WWE in June.
“When I got released, I kind of was like ‘okay. I can go and work every weekend if I wanted to,'” Breeze said. “Obviously right now there’s a big influx of people getting released or joining AEW, even ROH, Impact, wherever they’re going. But there’s a lot of wrestling out there. So it seems like every show there’s a big debut. One, luckily, I don’t need to work every weekend or do whatever. I can afford to take a break. Fortunately, and unfortunately, when you’re a smaller guy in wrestling, you take a lot of bumps and you get beat up a lot more than the big guys. I took one break in fourteen years, and that was to go get married. I was off for nine days. Nine days in fourteen years essentially is what I was off. So I kind of just went ‘you know what? Let’s just take a second here to reassess. I’ve got to see how I’m feeling first off, because I want to be a healthy 33 year old man.’ I stopped for a month and all of a sudden everything hit me like a ton of bricks. My knees kind of hurt, my hips hurt, my back hurt, my neck hurt, my shoulders hurt. So I had to fix those first and foremost. I have a masseuse and I have a chiropractor. They kind of just go piece by piece and they go ‘alright, what’s the first thing here?’ Luckily, I’m so ridiculously fortunate. I’ve never had any surgeries or broken anything, I’ve been good. I say ‘maybe my knees are screwed.’ He (the chiropractor) went ‘nope. All it is is everything’s tight, so it’s pulling on everything.’ Between him and my masseuse, they worked on my legs until all of a sudden my knees feel okay. Then it’s ‘my hips feel kind of tight.’ ‘Alright, let’s work on your hips.’ Week after week we get in there, we work on my hips, then it’s cool.
“My neck was a big issue. I was like ‘is it actually messed up or what?’ They said ‘it’s a combo of things. We need to loosen it all up and need to get it moving again.’ Boom, they nailed it, they’re done. Now the last lingering thing is my arm, my shoulder, which we thought initially was my rotator cuff. It’s my bicep tendon and it’s kind of pinching. I can’t work out how I want to because I have no strength. It pinches and it stops. We’ve been working on it like crazy and it’s actually getting better to where I’m like ‘okay. I’m very close to being where I want to be.’ And I don’t want to go wrestle anywhere till I’m back in shape and I’m back in wrestling shape. Aside from the school, I haven’t wrestled for three or four months. And I’m not in the shape I want to be to go somewhere. And I’m not going to go somewhere out of shape. I haven’t watched much wrestling. I watch here and there when my friends are on. Obviously when (Xavier) Woods wins King of the Ring or when (Adam) Cole debuts. That type of stuff I’m going to watch. But for the most part I haven’t watched a lot, and even when I do watch, there’s nothing that makes me go ‘oh man, I’d have a really fun match with this guy’ or ‘I think this would be really cool.’ Nothing is sparking me to go yet. I remember when Cole was figuring out what he was going to do, I watched when he debuted (in AEW). The crowd was back and I think that, especially too because when I finished up, the crowd wasn’t really back yet. It was but it wasn’t. And watching an arena full of people, when they react, I got goosebumps for it. I went ‘oh!’ It’s still in there, but it’s not quite there yet. So I’m going to just relax until it’s fully there and I have to pull the trigger on it.”
Despite that, Breeze full plans on making a return to wrestling, believing he still has more to offer. He just wants to make sure it’s the right situation before he dives back in.
“I just feel that, at 33, I still have more to offer,” Breeze said. “I know a lot of these guys have ‘I’ve got another run in me’ or ‘I can be the champion’ or whatever. And this isn’t selling myself short or anything like that, but look at the guys going into AEW. You’ve got Bryan Danielson, Punk and Cole and they’re in a different category than a Tyler Breeze, I feel. But I still feel that I can add to a show I’m on. And I think that I still have a lot to offer, and I think I can still have a lot of fun wrestling. I still think there’s a lot of meat on the bone there, and I think it be a lot of fun. Like I said, I want to make sure it’s right before I fully just do it to do it, you know?”
“It’s funny hearing some people because they’re like ‘oh man, you’re career was never anything’ or ‘you never made it to a certain level’ or ‘you didn’t win any titles’ or whatever,” Breeze said. “It was never about that. That’s one thing that I was taught by Lance (Storm). The titles are just titles. The best people don’t necessarily have the title. Some people need the titles to go to a certain level and be a star. The titles are to help you get to a certain place of ‘the fans really like this guy, they’re buying his merch, let’s get him some titles’ or whatever.
“But never once have I ever held my value or my credibility on if I get titles or wins. I loved being able to watch and if someone walked in and looked at the card on the wall and went ‘oh I’m working Breeze tonight. Awesome.’ That to me is the biggest badge of honor. That’s the biggest thing, that my peers respect and they see they’re working me, they smile and say ‘this is going to be fun.'”
Breeze also explained why he hasn’t returned to wrestling since his release from WWE in June.
“When I got released, I kind of was like ‘okay. I can go and work every weekend if I wanted to,'” Breeze said. “Obviously right now there’s a big influx of people getting released or joining AEW, even ROH, Impact, wherever they’re going. But there’s a lot of wrestling out there. So it seems like every show there’s a big debut. One, luckily, I don’t need to work every weekend or do whatever. I can afford to take a break. Fortunately, and unfortunately, when you’re a smaller guy in wrestling, you take a lot of bumps and you get beat up a lot more than the big guys. I took one break in fourteen years, and that was to go get married. I was off for nine days. Nine days in fourteen years essentially is what I was off. So I kind of just went ‘you know what? Let’s just take a second here to reassess. I’ve got to see how I’m feeling first off, because I want to be a healthy 33 year old man.’ I stopped for a month and all of a sudden everything hit me like a ton of bricks. My knees kind of hurt, my hips hurt, my back hurt, my neck hurt, my shoulders hurt. So I had to fix those first and foremost. I have a masseuse and I have a chiropractor. They kind of just go piece by piece and they go ‘alright, what’s the first thing here?’ Luckily, I’m so ridiculously fortunate. I’ve never had any surgeries or broken anything, I’ve been good. I say ‘maybe my knees are screwed.’ He (the chiropractor) went ‘nope. All it is is everything’s tight, so it’s pulling on everything.’ Between him and my masseuse, they worked on my legs until all of a sudden my knees feel okay. Then it’s ‘my hips feel kind of tight.’ ‘Alright, let’s work on your hips.’ Week after week we get in there, we work on my hips, then it’s cool.
“My neck was a big issue. I was like ‘is it actually messed up or what?’ They said ‘it’s a combo of things. We need to loosen it all up and need to get it moving again.’ Boom, they nailed it, they’re done. Now the last lingering thing is my arm, my shoulder, which we thought initially was my rotator cuff. It’s my bicep tendon and it’s kind of pinching. I can’t work out how I want to because I have no strength. It pinches and it stops. We’ve been working on it like crazy and it’s actually getting better to where I’m like ‘okay. I’m very close to being where I want to be.’ And I don’t want to go wrestle anywhere till I’m back in shape and I’m back in wrestling shape. Aside from the school, I haven’t wrestled for three or four months. And I’m not in the shape I want to be to go somewhere. And I’m not going to go somewhere out of shape. I haven’t watched much wrestling. I watch here and there when my friends are on. Obviously when (Xavier) Woods wins King of the Ring or when (Adam) Cole debuts. That type of stuff I’m going to watch. But for the most part I haven’t watched a lot, and even when I do watch, there’s nothing that makes me go ‘oh man, I’d have a really fun match with this guy’ or ‘I think this would be really cool.’ Nothing is sparking me to go yet. I remember when Cole was figuring out what he was going to do, I watched when he debuted (in AEW). The crowd was back and I think that, especially too because when I finished up, the crowd wasn’t really back yet. It was but it wasn’t. And watching an arena full of people, when they react, I got goosebumps for it. I went ‘oh!’ It’s still in there, but it’s not quite there yet. So I’m going to just relax until it’s fully there and I have to pull the trigger on it.”
Despite that, Breeze full plans on making a return to wrestling, believing he still has more to offer. He just wants to make sure it’s the right situation before he dives back in.
“I just feel that, at 33, I still have more to offer,” Breeze said. “I know a lot of these guys have ‘I’ve got another run in me’ or ‘I can be the champion’ or whatever. And this isn’t selling myself short or anything like that, but look at the guys going into AEW. You’ve got Bryan Danielson, Punk and Cole and they’re in a different category than a Tyler Breeze, I feel. But I still feel that I can add to a show I’m on. And I think that I still have a lot to offer, and I think I can still have a lot of fun wrestling. I still think there’s a lot of meat on the bone there, and I think it be a lot of fun. Like I said, I want to make sure it’s right before I fully just do it to do it, you know?”