Robert Anthony opens up about playing the character of Cyon in NWA.
Anthony appeared on Podding With Ego to discuss this topic, which saw him admit how much he disliked playing Cyon and revealed that it was a character the NWA forced upon him. He adds that his heart and soul was not into it from the very beginning.
Cyon was supposed to be an old school throwback… Everyone in my inner circle at that point did not like it… I showed it to a lot of people and a lot of people asked the question, ‘Why?’ Because at this point, right before Cyon was going, I was doing AEW. I had that whole Dark run. So it wasn’t like I wasn’t relevant, right? I was fresh off of AEW Darks of the whole entire pandemic. When I debuted as Cyon a couple of weeks later, I wrestled at the United Center with Joey Janela. So I was still doing stuff and a lot of people didn’t understand, ‘Why aren’t you just you?’ And I said, ‘I really don’t know.’ They wanted this character, they wanted a masked throwback character and I kind of feel like I failed at that because deep down inside, I’m not that. ‘Egotistico Fantastico’ is not a throwback. He’s a crazy luchador, blah, blah, blah, blah. Very much like El Generico, yes… But, I was falling into this — not a depression but a confusion. My whole entire Cyon run, which we’ll get into a little bit of it of the good and bad and stuff, I was very confused the whole time because I spent 23 years as Robert Anthony or Egotistico Fantastico and I knew how to do that with my eyes closed. Now you’re asking me to abandon everything that I know and be very efficient at this new character that my heart and soul wasn’t into.
Anthony adds that he was so restricted in working as Cyon because he didn’t get to be his true authentic self.
I only know how to be Robert Anthony and I feel I was failing. They told me to get black tights and wrestling boots. Dude, that lasted like a month. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move in it and I couldn’t be myself so I abandoned that.
Cyon wrestled his last match for the NWA at the Crockett Cup earlier this year. You can check out Anthony’s full interview by clicking here.
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling)