Shawn Spears was recently interviewed on “INSIGHT” with Chris Van Vliet and he talked about his return to WWE from AEW, Cody Rhodes and several other topics.
On using the name Shawn Spears instead of Tye Dillinger when he returned to WWE:
“Dillinger, 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, 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’, and 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.”
On why he left AEW:
“I think it just came down to a personal want in terms of wanting to contribute a little bit more, both in front of the camera and behind the camera. I had a wonderful time in AEW. I have and have had a great relationship with Tony Khan. You’re never going to hear me say anything bad about that guy. Same thing with a lot of EVPs, talent, everything. I had a wonderful time. I got to learn a lot about myself as a businessman, a lot more of what not to do, and a little bit more to kind of put your foot down. It’s okay to kind of have faith in what you’re worth and faith in your ability and things like that. So it was a really good learning process in terms of being an individual man in a different company, but man, my time there was special, getting to work with all the top guys based on a lot of storylines that I was in with Max and FTR and things like that. So a lot of things that I would have never gotten to do, I think in my career, I was very fortunate enough to do there.”
On if his wife, Cassie Lee, will be returning to wrestling:
“She watches it a lot. She watches it more than I do. That doesn’t mean I don’t watch wrestling, it just means I’m busy a lot. I’m around. I can see a lot of stuff. Yeah, she keeps up on it. She still loves watching a lot of her friends. She’s still getting the itch, so she’s already weight training. She’s doing all that kind of stuff. She’s getting back into the mix and things like that. When she feels 100% good to go, there’s a ring close by, so she plans on getting back into it. She doesn’t know what capacity, meaning no one said anything. No one said, ‘Hey, when you ready, come on back.’ Like, not Impact, not anything, but with the working relationship, who’s to say that that’s not a possibility? She still misses it. I think she still has a little bit of an itch. We’ll see.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Chris Van Vliet with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
