Tyler Breeze says his WWE main roster call-up was supposed to feel like a promotion, but for him it felt more like a warning sign. Breeze says he dreaded leaving NXT because he already believed Vince McMahon wasn’t going to like him or understand what made the Tyler Breeze character work.
During an appearance on the Certified Mark Show, Breeze was asked how he felt when WWE finally decided to move him out of NXT and onto the main roster. He didn’t try to sugarcoat it.
“Hated it. Hated it. Hated it. I was dreading. So I was, uh, I was on the fence for like a year or a year and a half where they were calling me up. So I was doing double duty.”
Breeze had already been working main roster live events, dark matches, Main Event and Superstars while still appearing for NXT, so he knew the full-time move was coming. The problem was that he didn’t want it. The biggest reason was Vince McMahon.
“I’m dreading it. I don’t want it because I know that Vince isn’t really gonna like me. I know I’m not the biggest guy. I’m not really his cup of tea. Like, I just don’t think he’s gonna really get with me.”
Breeze said he could already see the problem before the move even happened. The version of Tyler Breeze that had clicked in NXT was built around a very specific presentation, and he feared that wouldn’t survive once he was working under McMahon.
“And, um, so I knew that when I got called up, I was probably not going to be the same Tyler Breeze as I was in NXT.”
The call eventually came after an NXT television taping when Triple H pulled Breeze into his office and told him he was officially being moved up. Breeze says he tried to look pleased, but apparently he wasn’t fooling anybody.
“And I think it was on that Breaking Ground show, you see me standing at the front of the auditorium. And I was just kind of like nodding like, ‘Yeah, this is awesome.’”
Matt Bloom noticed how little excitement Breeze was showing and told him he needed to do a better job of acting happy about the news.
“Bloom afterwards came up to me and he goes, ‘You got to at least like act like you’re happy.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m not. This sucks.’ Like I love being in NXT.”
Breeze’s frustration wasn’t just about Vince McMahon. He also felt like he was being pulled away from NXT at exactly the wrong time. WWE was preparing to take NXT overseas, while plans were being put together for Breeze on SmackDown. He wanted to stay involved with the NXT crew and asked whether he could still make the trip. That wasn’t happening, and Breeze says the entire situation ended up playing out exactly the way he feared.
“And I was like, ‘Ah, can I still be a part of this?’ Like, I still want to be on the big TakeOver in Europe because, like, we haven’t been there. And I, like, this is my place. I want to represent NXT in Europe because this is going to be awesome.”
“And they were like, ‘Ah, no, we can’t.’ And I said, ‘Damn it.’ Like, I hated it. I hated that I wasn’t a part of it. And I hated that I left NXT. And what happened ended up being exactly what I thought was going to happen.”
Breeze made it clear that he understood why a main roster call-up mattered financially. RAW and SmackDown meant more money, and he knew wrestlers only have a limited amount of time to cash in on their careers. But when it came strictly to wrestling, Breeze had no problem saying where he thought the better product was at the time. For Breeze, that era of NXT had something the main roster simply couldn’t match.
“So from a wrestling aspect I’m like, man, I want to wrestle in NXT. I don’t want to wrestle on Raw and SmackDown. Yes, WrestleMania is WrestleMania and everything else, but, like, I love what NXT is doing. I think it’s better than Raw and SmackDown.”
“But the wrestling passion part of you that is why, you know, you do what you do in NXT at that time will never be rivaled. That was, you know, to me, the best time to be a part of.”
Breeze eventually made the move to WWE’s main roster, but it’s clear he saw trouble coming before he ever officially left NXT. He knew Vince McMahon wasn’t likely to see him the same way Triple H and the NXT system did, and years later, Breeze says what followed was exactly what he feared.
Do you think Tyler Breeze could have been a bigger star on WWE’s main roster if Vince McMahon had understood the character better? Let us know what you think in the comments and leave your feedback below.
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