PW Mania recently conducted an interview with former WWE star Viktor from the Ascension, where Viktor spoke on a number of different topics including the Ascension’s NXT tag title run and whether they will ever return to WWE. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
If he keeps in touch with Konnor and a potential WWE return:
We don’t keep in touch at all as of late. We haven’t spoken to each other in quite a while. There’s no bad blood there by any means. I think, when we got released we had a bunch of conversations about what we wanted to do, and I think it was kind of like, I looked at it this way. You know, it seemed to me where I was like, well, we’ve still got opportunity and there’s things going. So we both were like, ‘Yeah, you know, I think there’s still something left to do.’ COVID hit, and just nothing. Nothing seemed to work out for us. So it’s like, you know, just constant stumbling blocks that we couldn’t seem to overcome. And I think I just kind of got really burnt out. Like, I think the first little while we enjoyed what we did. And then after a while there was so much hassle with things that I think it just started to take its toll on us. And I know, he just kind of went to do his separate thing. And I kind of didn’t want to do anything for a while. Like, I was like, you know, I just need to chill, I really was bitter. Bitter is the best way to put it, kind of, but I was just burned out, super burned out. Like when I think about all the teachers that I’ve seen and worked with who have sat and watched with and worked with a million different wrestlers and all the hours of wrestling that they’ve ever seen when it’s like, just in my time, I know how much I’ve seen. And it’s just like, wow, I just needed to take a really big break. Only even recently have I been able to even start watching certain wrestling again. But I mean, I’ve thought about that [returning to WWE] before I used to say no. I don’t have any desire to go back to WWE. I mean, the money would always be great. But I think of what cost that comes with. It’s one of those things like I saw that the Headbangers recently got a Legends deal, or that something along those lines is what they signed. And I was like, that’s really awesome. I was really happy for them. I don’t ever expect Konnor and me to get something like that from WWE, because we’re just forgotten about. After our NXT run, they did everything to make people forget that we were the longest-reigning NXT champions. And so I think they just want to leave it that way. But would I ever go back for a singles run or something like that? I don’t know. I mean, I don’t really have any desire to go back there and work under those circumstances, is the best way I can put it. I think, especially now, I mean, I think if it was just, you know, Paul, Triple H running the company, maybe. I always really liked Paul and Stephanie. I mean, I don’t really personally have anything against Vince, that he would have done to me or something like that. But there’s just something about it. I got turned off by a lot that happened with Brody’s death, and how it was handled by certain people within that company. It just really showed me that like, they don’t give a sh*t. Like no matter what. And that’s not saying everybody there doesn’t give a sh*t about it. It’s a very small minority. It just turned me off too much.
Being one-half of the longest reigning NXT Tag Team Champions of all time (alongside his The Ascension partner Konnor):
I’ve kind of gone over this a few times because I think there was a point where like, I stopped caring because they weren’t allowed to even bring it up when we weren’t around anymore. And that was one of those things, it really got to me because the commentators were always looking. They knew what we’re capable of, you know what I mean? Obviously, all the people that we worked with all the time knew what we’re capable of. And so I think that was still a way that they wanted us to remind people that we weren’t what was being portrayed of us at that moment. You know, what I mean, kind of give us a little bit of hope. And I can remember, I’m pretty sure it was Tom, that came and was like, ‘Hey, I just got told that we’re no longer ever allowed to mention this again.’ And I was like, ‘Well, that took long enough.’ So like it used to kind of sting that way where I was like, ‘Well, you know, they’re just going to erase us and forget about us,’ as best as they can. But after all this time, like even I think it’s been almost five years, four or five years that I’ve been away. And nobody’s ever really come close. I there was, I’m forgetting who it was now. Was it Bobby Fish, and Kyle O’Riley, who were maybe champions for quite a while, like, I can’t remember who the longest last reigning ones were. And I thought they were kind of coming close. Like, I just can’t remember who it was now. Right now, I couldn’t even tell you who the NXT Tag Team Champions are. And that’s not by any fault of theirs. I’m just not really paying attention. When you just said Gunther was a long reigning Intercontinental Champion I was like, ‘huh,’ I was kind of paying attention to him. And the last thing I remember seeing which I couldn’t tell you what it was, was when he won the IC title. What I mean, like, there’s guys who I do try to pay attention to, and I haven’t, I mean, lately, I’ve, I’ve gotten so away from Twitter. And I mean, when I look out on Instagram, stuff is just no longer so much wrestling. That surprises me.