Shawn Spears was recently on Insight With Chris Van Vliet, where he discussed various topics.
Spears had been with WWE off and on for years. He first signed a developmental deal in 2006 and briefly worked on WWE’s ECW brand in 2008 and 2009 under the Tye Dillinger name. He departed in 2019, then went to AEW before finishing up last year, only to return earlier this year to NXT.
During the interview, the WWE NXT star discussed using the Shawn Spears name instead of Tye Dillinger when he returned to WWE.
He said, “It means a good deal to me. Not to take anything away from the Tye Dillinger thing, only because of the way I got the name Tye Dillinger was pretty special to me. It holds a special place in my heart. Dillinger, I don’t know if I’ve ever explained this because…I kind of came up with on my own based on John Dillinger, the famous bank robber from back in the day, just public enemy number one, but loved by the public and that kind of stuff. I always have a fascination with things like that. Then Dusty Rhodes was one who gave me the name Tye, so that name will always kind of carry a special weight to it, but being away and going back to a name that I picked from a baby book way back when I was first starting out, and being able to kind of put some weight behind it a little bit in terms of what I was able to do with that over the course of X amount of years. When I came back to WWE, it was presented as an option, which I’ve felt very grateful for. It was a conversation. It was like, ‘How would you like to proceed? Would you want to go back here, or do you want to kind of hang on to this?’ I just said, ‘Let’s hang on to this. Let’s see what we can do coming back. A fresh start, fresh slate. Let’s see what we can do.’ So it meant a lot that I had that option, and we’re still building. Let’s see.”
Spears also revealed that he’s also working behind the scenes in NXT. We will post a full recap of the interview on the site shortly.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit Insight With Chris Van Vliet with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
