Josh Woods made an appearance on AEW Unrestricted to discuss a wide range of topics.
During it, Woods discussed being released from WWE NXT in 2016 and going to Ring of Honor. Here is what he had to say:
“I got released from NXT in 2016. I was very new to wrestling. I was barely even in two years. Anyone who has been in that program or that system, like you got a really advanced crash course in wrestling. You hear a lot of people say, ‘Oh, I’ve been wrestling for 10 years.’ All right, well, you practiced what, once a week, or you wrestled once a month, like how do you really gauge whose time is more, like who’s really put in more time. When you’re there, at least when I was there at that time, I know it’s a very different schedule now, but when I was there, I think I was in the ring almost five days a week, sometimes six, and that’s pretty unheard of on the independent scene from my experience hearing other people, and plus, you know, three shows every, every weekend.”
“So I think I just did so much of it, I was like, well, I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to be done in wrestling because I could have gone back to fighting or just done something else. But I think I just invested so much time and just so much part of myself, I was like man, I just can’t be done.”
“I’d never done the Indies prior to NXT, so I had no idea what that was even. So I’m like, what? You can do other stuff, like this is insane. I think I have a couple and then I had the ROH tryout and then I signed with them. I was kind of at a low point when I got released because I’ve never really been, like, bad at anything. So like, they don’t really tell you why. You’re just kind of like, oh man, what did I do wrong? You know, it’s like a breakup. You’re done. I got a lot of self doubt and competence issues. I think a lot of people romanticize what we do, but they really don’t understand the kind of mental toll it takes and that’s like a whole other issue as I’m sure you guys know, as well. But yeah, so being in Ring of Honor really brought back the love of wrestling for me and it changed my life because I was able to live and do what I love because I fell in love with wrestling.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription