Kyle O’Reilly appeared on “The Sessions” with Renee Paquette this week to discuss why he chose AEW over NXT, attending Wrestlemania as a fan, the lack of passion in some NXT trainees, and wrestling with diabetes.
Kyle O’Reilly on why he chose AEW over NXT:
“The AEW locker room is full of the guys that I came up with in this business that I’ve been friends with for years,” O’Reilly said.
“There was a lot of that in NXT too, but it seemed like every couple weeks I would look around at the locker room and it was getting decimated. It wasn’t a very good environment, I guess, at that time. I wanted to follow my heart where I’m going to be happy and be utilized.”
“I felt to stay with WWE, it was going to be to stay with NXT, and at this point after four and a half years, if you don’t really have a spot with Kyle O’Reilly on the main roster, I got the vibe that there wasn’t going to be a spot for me up there,” he continued.
Kyle said he feels some people coming into NXT don’t really love the business:
“I think people in wrestling are really rare in the sense that you really, really have to love it,” Kyle shared. “I think that might be an underlying problem in this new NXT.”
“There’s a lot of people coming in that I don’t think really have that true love for it. I’m sure they’ll do well, they’ll make a big splash, be a big star, and make a ton of money, but at the end of the day, if your heart isn’t really in it, I don’t know. It’s tough.”
Kyle recalling attending WrestleMania XX as a fan:
“Angle vs Lesnar was the main event,” he recalled. “It was Hogan vs McMahon 20 years in the making with the return of Rowdy Roddy Piper, and then Shawn vs Jericho, which was one of the best live matches that I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“But just to experience WrestleMania as a 15 year old, for the first time going to a big event, it’s in a different city, and my mom took me and my buddies down and dropped us off and went to the casino to kill a few hours. It was so amazing. Everybody has that moment when they know they want to be a pro wrestler, and I had that moment long before that, but just the spectacle of it all, I could just close my eyes and remember everything about it.”
Kyle on dealing with having diabetes:
“I found out when I was less than a year into wrestling. I was like 18,” he said. “I just started having matches.”
“I was trying to get licensed for Washington state. You needed blood work done. Something was definitely up for a while. I was really sick and lost a ton of weight. There wasn’t enough water in the world to satiate my thirst. We knew something was up but pleading ignorance, like if I ignore the problem I’m sure it will go away.”
“Lo and behold, they diagnosed me on the spot. My blood sugar levels were through the roof. The doctor’s were towing the line saying this wrestling has to stop, but it’s just something I have to adapt with. I took it in stride, like this is my new life. This is everything I have to do to stay healthy.”
“In the end, it’s made me more accountable for my own health. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a brutal physical and mental grind that never ends. Each day it’s constant. I’m making decisions on my medication that literally can mean life or death in one moment.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit “The Sessions with Renée Paquette “ with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
