Chris Jericho spoke with Bobby Fish and Kyle O’ Reilly of reDRagon this week on “Talk Is Jericho” to discuss leaving ROH for NXT, as well as why they came to AEW.
Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly on why they left Ring of Honor and New Japan to go to NXT in 2017:
Making their NXT debuts in 2017, both Kyle O’ Reilly and Bobby Fish had a bigger spotlight on them than ever before.
“I feel like New Japan was really hot and doing well, but I felt like NXT was the place at that time,” Bobby Fish shared.
“I remember the TakeOvers with Finn (Balor) and Kevin (Owens), it just seemed like NXT was the cool kid at school. New Japan wasn’t far behind that, but wasn’t quite there. So it was between Ring of Honor and New Japan didn’t know that NXT was an option, and then all of a sudden NXT was an option. I pretty much thought that I wouldn’t go to WWE in my career and I was fine. To realize it was an option was a big game changer,” Fish continued.
O’Reilly said, “It was really hard to walk away from Japan. That was where I always really wanted to wrestle. I loved the culture. I loved the people. I truly loved wrestling for that company. The natural progression at the end of the day is you have to do what’s best for you and your family, and the opportunity with NXT was the best thing for my family at the time.”
reDRagon On how they came to AEW over the course of a few months:
Fish opened up about his AEW debut experience saying, “The first week, there was an email that came out about medical. You guys were in Rochester. It was as if I was supposed to be in Rochester. I was like, wait a second. I haven’t even discussed anything with anyone. I had a few people say, ‘Hey, are you here?’, and I ignored them. I didn’t know what was happening.”
Fish continued, “It came a week early and I don’t know where the communication might have been mixed. The following week, I was supposed to contact Tony (Khan). Tony and I had a conversation. He had an idea of how to bring me in. It was going to be wrapped around some of the forbidden door thing with Sammy (Guevara) and the TNT title, and off to the races we went.”
Kyle O’ Reilly shared his thoughts as well, opening up with, “For me, seeing Bobby come here, and seeing Adam (Cole) come here, how can you not want to be back with these guys and part of a group like AEW where every week it’s like a TakeOver crowd on TV.”
“We talked about the natural progression and next steps in one’s career, and it just felt like for me, this is the next logical step for me. The NXT 2.0 rebrand happened. It felt to me that before the rebrand happened, Kyle O’Reilly was a top guy in NXT, and after the rebrand, it felt like plans shifted and that’s fine. That’s just business. I’m totally willing to do what I can to help anyone else get over, and for the last few months there, I tried my damndest to do so with everyone I worked with,” O’ Reilly said.
“It just felt like I wanted to be excited about going to work again. I felt like I left a ton on the table with New Japan as well, and I know here, there is a good working relationship with New Japan. It seemed like a new frontier. There’s so many talented guys there. There are so many exciting matches. There are so many exciting tag matches because the tag team division is stacked and I love tag team wrestling. My tag team partner, the company released and now he’s there,” Kyle continued.
“My deal was done. It was coming up in December. I ended up doing a week extension just to finish up and do good business with them, to finish up with the WarGames and put Von Wagner over, do business right, and I’m happy to do so. The opportunity was there to come here. I ended up sorting out a deal with Tony a day or two before my debut.”
reDRagon are currently involved in a feud with The Best Friends in which Adam Cole will take on Orange Cassidy tonight in a Lights Out match on AEW’s “Beach Break” special.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Talk Is Jericho with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription
