For a long time, Tyler Breeze rarely made much of an impact on Raw and SmackDown.
Although it’s not necessarily his fault, Breeze had been working dark matches and live events for months as his tag team partner Fandango continued to recover from injury and Breeze wasn’t featured prominently on either show that he was on. It wasn’t until he returned to NXT, the place where many first saw him in WWE, in 2019 when he got to start turning his career around.
In an interview with Chris Van Vliet, Breeze admitted that he wasn’t in a good place both professionally and personally and privately went to WWE to see what can be done. Breeze then said WWE didn’t want him to leave the company and suggested he return to NXT.
“The thing is, the public or social media wants to make it this big hurrah. It’s not like that, not only in my professional life, but also in my personal life. Like, I was going through a lot of things. I wasn’t in a very good place in May and that’s when it all came to a head and I kind of dropped a bomb on everything. I just kind of said I got to change my life because I am not happy. Nobody can change it, but you. I said, ‘Alright, I got to change my job, I got to change my life, got to change everything that is going.’ It didn’t even start out as, ‘Hey, send me to NXT! I’m not happy,’ whatever type of thing. It wasn’t that at all. It was just, ‘Look, I haven’t been doing anything. I haven’t been enjoying what I’m doing.' [Fandango] had no sign of coming back anytime soon. If you don’t need me, I can go and kind of do something else and either prove that you do need me or that you want me or I’ll go find something else to do because I’m just not enjoying what I’m doing. I was specifically told, ‘We’d rather have you on NXT,’" Breeze said.
Although Breeze admitted that he wasn’t thoroughly enjoying himself at that point in his career, he had no intention of walking out in the company. For a while, Breeze was working matches on WWE’s Main Event program and said he wasn’t opposed to doing that. The issue lied in him being put in a position where anyone could do and that he wasn’t enjoying it.
“I don’t want to leave. Obviously, I’ve been with WWE for 10 years. I love it. I love it. There’s been a pattern of people going, ‘I want to do whatever,’ and cause this big uproar. It’s not that at all [with me]. I had to get myself to a good place. I had to become happy and I just wasn’t,” Breeze said.
The full interview can be seen in the video at the top of the page. If you use any of the quotes above, please credit Chris Van Vliet with an h/t to Fightful for the transcription.
