NXT star Alex Riley recently did a Q&A with WWE.com about his return to the developmental brand and more. Here are the highlights.
You’ve been on record saying that you “make no apologies from this point forward.” What does that mean?
The “no apologies” thing came from the fact that I have always been considered a nice guy and prided myself on that. I have always apologized when I thought I wasn’t being such. There is no room for that in my world as it stands now. I always say that for eight years, I was both Kevin Kiley and Alex Riley while I was in WWE. It became very obvious to me along the way that they couldn’t coexist in this world. Either Alex Riley would survive and take his rightful place in the company, or Kevin Kiley would be back in a suit and tie, selling medical devices.
Right or wrong, for better or worse, Kevin Kiley is now dead and gone. The man that stands here today will never apologize for what circumstances and a basic need to survive have made him. This is not a game of laser tag or dodgeball. The world I live in is a game of life and death, and I won’t apologize for treating it that way. If you were left out in the cold for as long as I had been, and had to take someone’s comforter, food, or even their home to survive, you wouldn’t apologize either.
Why do you think this attitude of survival is pivotal for you?
I always have been at my best when my back is against the wall. Sometimes I feel like I am not 100-percent focused until that point. I literally wake up every day to a dogfight in one of the most competitive companies in the world, and I am at the bottom of the mountain. I feel blessed to have had it almost come crashing down a couple times and one time completely. I know what it’s like to not eat, to be pushed to the back of the line, ignored, blackballed and disregarded. There are not many things I know for sure about the course of my life, but I promise that will never happen again.
Click here to read the full interview.
