Pro-wrestling star and former NXT tag champion Tyler Breeze was the latest guest to appear on Insight With Chris Van Vilet to discuss a number of different topics, including WWE’s third-party policy ban, their protest on Twitch streams, and how he was nearly fired for creating the Tyler Breeze character during his early days with WWE. Highlights are below.
On WWE protesting Twitch streams:
“So it was a little different. So obviously everybody kind of threw their hands up in the air when they kind of stopped everything. There’s a saying that’s been around and will last; ‘The boys will mess it up for the boys.’ I was streaming on Twitch for 2 years and no one was really paying attention to anything, because I was doing it properly. In the end, when you are under a certain banner, it’s like media training. If something happens, let’s say I’m live, and I represent myself horribly. When you sign onto a big company, the headline doesn’t read ‘Matt Clement does this…’ It now says ‘WWE Superstar…’ or ‘AEW Superstar…’ did this. Now you have to be mature enough to realize you represent a bigger entity and conduct yourself accordingly.”
On why WWE protested:
“People then realized they could do this [Twitch streams] and they don’t present themselves accordingly. Whether it’s using their intellectual property, or giving away things they shouldn’t be giving away. They just violate certain things, and eventually the guy who is charge of everything will say ‘You know what? everything stops, you ruined it.’ They can’t go case by case of you’re OK but you are not OK. They just go ‘You guys stop.’ And honestly from a business standpoint, if you ran a business and you had all this stuff, would you let it go? You would blanket it and say ‘Guys, this has to stop.'”
On nearly getting fired before he created the Tyler Breeze character:
“I was like the cockroach that wouldn’t go away man. There were several times where it was like ‘Hey you’re gonna get fired…’ Then something happened, then it would repeat. I always just barely clung on, whether it was from taking a random bump in the ring or someone seeing me in the ring that hadn’t seen me. There was always something that would give me a little bit more life. Even when I found the Tyler Breeze Stuff, it went from ‘you’re probably not going to get fired…’ to ‘You’re gonna get fired…’ That’s just how it goes, the lifespan of what we do isn’t long. Look at Stone Cold Steve Austin, he wrestled for a long time but his run in WWE was 5 years. I wrestled for 11 years in WWE, not many people can say that.”
Did almost being released in the past prepare him for this?
“No, it was but it was also like… Well firstly I have been in WWE for 11 years. I was also very smart with my money where now the income part wasn’t such a big worry to me. Now I understand where they are coming from to let me go, it’s just business. You can’t take it personally and go ‘What did I do wrong?’ Sometimes you just make too much money or they go ‘Hey. We don’t need you right now.’ It doesn’t mean that you’re gone forever. How many times do we see people get released and then they come back? Once you are in the system you are in the system, it’s just how it goes.”
Full interview is below.