Konnor and Viktor united to carry on the name The Ascension in 2013. By the end of the year, the duo were NXT Tag Team Champions and reigning over the tag team division.
Despite their success, they always wanted more in WWE and tried their best to fight to get it.
"There was a lot of pressure on us. When we won the NXT Tag Team Titles, that was a very bizarre day. Our developmental career was interesting. We knew it was an opportunity, but it was more about proving ourselves. There was a lot of doubt in us and that was more in-stated for quite a while, and I think that might have got us to where we were. When we first won the tag titles, we didn't believe we were going to have them for a month. We weren't sure we were going to be employed in a month or two, in all honesty. You've always got to fight in WWE and it was a really big fight. We never really stopped fighting. It probably didn't feel the same for people looking at us from the outside, as to how we felt, but that's probably why we were the way we were in the ring. You couldn't get two guys more pissed off than what we were in our heads. Developmental for everybody at that time, I think felt the same. All the people we were there with, going through the same stuff, we were going for them too. It wasn't an easy place. There was a point in time where everything chilled out but that didn't happen right away," Viktor recalled on the Lewis Nicholls Show.
Viktor went on to say that they were working or training seven days a week, which took a big mental and physical toll.
He continued by saying, "The biggest trouble was proving ourselves. It's hard to prove yourself because we weren't always given the opportunity to have a five-star match. A lot of times, it was a squash match with young and inexperienced guys who I didn't want to do something to because I didn't know if they could take it. Those were some of the biggest struggles. How do you be awesome in this situation without doing the exact same thing week in and week out? How do we keep getting better just doing this? I used to fight with Bill [DeMott] about that all the time, 'let us do more.'"
He noted that having 20-minute matches with the likes of Jason Jordan and Juice Robinson (CJ Parker in NXT) helped them feel satisfied, but that it didn't happen too often.
The duo was called up to the main roster at the end of 2014, where they had to start again. You can find Viktor's full comments about their transition to the main roster by clicking here.
If you use any of the quotes above, please give a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.
