WALTER made an appearance on After The Bell to talk with Corey Graves about a wide range of topics.
During it, the WWE NXT UK Champion was asked about working the indie scene and signing with NXT UK.
“I think most of the other wrestlers were willing to do it because it was their goal from day one, or early in their career that it was where they wanted to go. For me, for the most time in my life, it was never a realistic thing that I could actually ever wrestle for WWE. When I started 10 years ago, the wrestling world was very different. The WWE was very isolated from everybody else. It was so difficult to get to WWE.
They opened up a few years ago and realized how much talent there is out there still to actually work with. When everything came to talks with NXT UK at first, they talked to me right when it started and I was doing really well on the indies. I wanted to see what else comes up, and I said, ‘Wait and we’ll see what happens.’ When everything came together, and NXT UK existed a little bit, I started thinking about myself. The travel schedule on the indies was really rough. I’m aware that people on RAW and SmackDown travel a lot, like three or four nights a week, or something like that. On the indies, it’s different. Most of the guys did it themselves because you’re working for a different guy every day. You have to carry your merchandise with you. You have to organize everything. If you just rely on the promoters, there’s a big chance you’ll get stranded somewhere because somebody forgot about a plane ticket or something. So, there came a little bit of an administrative hassle as well. I was only home like two or three days a week, otherwise I was traveling. I can’t do that forever. I felt like I came home and I was visiting my girlfriend’s place. That needs to change. When NXT UK came up, we talked again. Obviously the focus is to build something here in Europe and the U.K. is the logical first step in the process because England was the hottest place to be in Europe for wrestling. That sounds like right where I belong and I got started.”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co