Joseph Conners worked with the WWE from 2016 to 2021. He became a part of the NXT UK brand.
Conners finished his contract with WWE last year and returned full-time to the independent scene. He expressed happiness in that period of his career on the Wrestling With Johners Podcast.
“Yeah, I mean I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I wouldn’t… I would like to be laying up even more stuff I’ve done there [NXT UK] but, no, definitely [was able to do a lot]. That first year, year-and-a-half, two years especially. Getting to do a SmackDown house show tour, on the road, on the buses, seven, eight nights, that was awesome. I mention someone like Kane. I grew up watching Kane and now I’m on a card with him, you know what I mean? Wembley Arena, places like that… That’s the kind of stuff we’re so fixated on; I need to do this, I need to be in better shape, I need to get here, I need to get there rather than just going, that was awesome, I did that. The 205 Live at The O2, that’s massive. I did two 205s. I can’t remember if it’s the first but we wrestled just after AJ [Styles] beat Jinder Mahal for the title. Just little things like that and then yeah, that’s awesome. I mean, I wish I would have been the one winning the first tournament or the second tournament but it wasn’t meant to be in that particular moment but as I said at the beginning of the call, I’m not counting myself out of anything at the moment but, no, I look back and I’m very proud I got to achieve, I got to do those things.”
He said that being in WWE improved his in-ring performance, although he admitted that being there may have briefly hurt his confidence.
“I wanted to input a lot of the things I learned the last few years as well [when I departed WWE] because being in that facility, it made me a better performer, better in-ring wrestler for starters and I also wanted to tell you where my mindset was. Like I said, my confidence was coming back. I would be lying if I didn’t say in some respects, my confidence had been jilted a little bit at times. I think it goes to being in those environments and I can’t speak for everybody, I can only speak for myself but, I just wanted to present something different and really take in how I truly feel to be honest. I worked with Bear Vision [Media], who do some really good work, as well as Elliot, another very good designer who does projects on the scene and I had a vision for what I wanted to say [in my post-WWE promo video]. But I didn’t sit and write my memoirs out or anything like that. I just wanted to get a camera in my face and sort of express my feelings and express my feelings towards myself because I got a lot of inner dialogue and I had a lot of thoughts over the last few years so, I just wanted to present who I am with the volume dialed up, you know? Because I’m not always dialed up to 11 every day of my life but when I’m in a professional wrestling environment, you have to be. So I just wanted to take that confidence, put my insecurities out there and let people know, look, I’m smashing through those now. I don’t really care. I don’t really care what anybody thinks. I mean there has been times in my life where I have cared… There’s so many talented people out there but I consider myself to be one of them.”
Quotes via POST Wrestling