New WWE United States champion Apollo Crews recently spoke with TalkSport about all things pro wrestling. Highlights from the interview, which include Crews crediting Paul Heyman to his recent success, are below.
Taking advantage of his new opportunities:
That’s what I felt like too. It felt like I was doing a lot of floating around. I did stuff here and there but nothing I could ever really dig my teeth into or show what I’m really capable of. I was given opportunities, but I don’t feel like I was ever given anything I could, or even the fans could latch onto. There’s no reason for them to really like me. Its like ‘Oh yeah, here’s this cool guy. This big guy who can do cool moves and cool stuff in the ring, but why do we want to like this guy,’ you know what I mean? But now I feel like I’m in a situation where I can show how I would react in a certain situation and show I do have more than a smile or cool moves in the ring. So, it’s a great opportunity I’m taking full advantage of.
Says Paul Heyman is 100% a component of his success:
100 percent. Paul Heyman is fantastic to work for. He’s been very hands-on with me and he’s helped me a lot, especially a lot in areas like my promos. And that’s one thing I feel like I can always improve on. I can improve on all areas of my game and make sure I work on becoming the complete superstar. And I won’t stop until that happens. I feel like human beings in general, we never see ourselves as perfect, but we always strive for perfection. I feel like just the fact that you strive for perfection, never feeling like you’ve reached it is what keeps you going. It’s cool for me to go out there and work with Aleister Black because I don’t remember the last time anyone has seen me in the ring for that amount of time, not even in NXT I don’t think I was in the ring that long. It was awesome. The funny thing about that is I was driving my kids around earlier that day trying to get them to fall asleep in the car and I get the call if I could be the Performance Center to have that match. And I was like ‘yeah, not a problem.’ For me, I was like I’ll drop everything I’m doing right now because that’s just who I am. I do what I’m asked – as long as it fits my morals – and I don’t see it any other way. It worked out very well for me and I’m very proud of the decision I made.