WWE Intercontinental champion Apollo Crews recently spoke to Newsweek to hype up this Sunday’s Horror Show at Extreme Rules pay per view. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
On Paul Heyman leaving and being excited to work with Bruce Prichard:
Since I’ve shown that I’m reliable, and trustworthy it doesn’t necessarily matter too much so that helps me in that sense. I don’t feel like it’s going to work against me. Working with Heyman was fantastic. He was so hands-on with me and he helped me a lot. He was one of the main reasons for me getting this opportunity and I’m very thankful for everything he’s done for me and helped me with. All I could do is look toward the future and I’m looking forward to working with Bruce [Prichard] as well. We’re going to make magic together and I’m excited for what’s to come and where I’m at right now. The company is seeing what I’m capable of after these past few months taking this opportunity and running with it.Every now and then I think about those [past] moments and it keeps me humble and hungry, knowing where I could have been and where I could have still been. And that’s what drives me. Once you get complacent, that’s where things shift and go in the wrong direction.
On being called up from NXT too soon:
At the time you don’t think about that. You get that news [about being called up] and in that moment you’re not thinking, ‘No I need to stay longer and develop this character more’ or anything like that. When you’re told that you’re going to debut on Monday Night RAW or SmackDown…a lot of stuff goes through your head, but for me one thing that didn’t go through my head was maybe I need to stay [in NXT] a little longer. And when I look back at it I would have loved to stay in NXT a little longer so I could do those things like develop my character, figure out who Apollo Crews is and learn how to react in certain situations. Allow the people to see me be angry, sad, happy, to see those different emotions so they can know that I have these different layers. It’s not just a guy who comes out smiling and does flips and other cool stuff.
It’s also hard making that transition from the indies to NXT. Just to be able to learn that style takes some time especially when you come out there and get thrown on TV quickly or asked to debut. I got to debut in the first NXT Takeover: Brooklyn so it’s not one of those things where you tell them, ‘I’m glad you want to do that with me, but I want to wait a little longer’ you know what I mean? It’s just not real. Some people might think like that, but it’s not what I think of. When I look back, it would have been nice to have more time for all of that to come together.