Matt Clemente (Tyler Breeze) was interviewed on the latest “Insight with Chris Van Vliet” podcast. Breeze talked about his 11 years with WWE, his release, what he plans to do next, teaming with Fandango, how UpUpDownDown changed his career, the wrestling school he owns, his match in NXT with Jushin “Thunder” Liger, and much more.
Here are some highlights and click here to subscribe to the podcast:
Tyler Breeze said he took Lance Storm’s advice he gave him to save money:
“I was taught very well by Lance Storm. He preached right away, ‘Be smart with your money. Yes, it’s exciting when you start making good money, but it doesn’t last forever so be smart with it.” Once I started to figure out what Lance meant when he said, ‘Be smart with your money’, man I wish they would have taught that in school…Once you get a little bit of capital, you can easily make money. It’s insane. You just have to know how. I branched out. I thought, real estate is big, so let’s look into this. All of a sudden you talk to a couple people who do it, Fandango, he’s the real estate master. He taught me some stuff. I tried it, did it, cool. What else can I do? Now you do this. So I still have the money, I just move it over into other places, like other piggy banks waiting for me when I want to take it all out. Now I’m using other people’s money to pay for my stuff instead of my own money…Now I have WWE and rental stuff. That’s two forms of income…Millionaires have 7-10 streams of income. I started researching stocks. There’s three. I slowly found these interests to build everything outside the ring for when that day came when the phone rang, and they said, ‘We don’t need you anymore.’ I said, ‘Cool’, because if I didn’t have any of this stuff, and that phone rang, I would have freaked out. I would have gone, ‘Oh God. I thought this was going to last forever. Where am I going to get my next paycheck?’ Luckily, I prepared and got ready for this, and when it happened, it was literally the shortest conversation of all time. ‘Bad news. Unfortunately we’re going to have to let you go.’ ‘Ok, cool.’ ‘Do you have any questions?’ ‘No, not really. Thanks man.’ I immediately started streaming again. I fired up everything and went into hustle mode. I’m ok with it all. There’s a lot of people that put all their eggs in the wrestling basket, and you’re one injury away, or you’re one phone call away from putting your income from ‘X’ amount of dollars to zero, and having zero income freaks the hell out of me.”
Breeze talking about getting ready for his future from day he signed:
“I was preparing to get fired the day I got hired. There is a lot of life to live after wrestling. I immediately started to make a plan, got ready. I remember looking at contracts. When I got my first contract, you had a 3 or 5 year developmental contract. But then I signed my main roster contract. I went, ‘OK, I’ve got 3 years. Realistically in a perfect world, I will last 3 years. I don’t want to have to sign it, I would like to, but if I don’t want to, I want the freedom to say no’ By the time 3 years came up, I went, I don’t have to, but it’s good, things are going OK. So I just signed it, and went OK, cool. By the time the next one came around, it was a very different scenario. It was ‘You don’t need me, I’m going to leave.’ kind of thing. At that moment in time, I was not happy. All they said was ‘I’m sorry, we can give you more money.’ I said, ‘I’ve been really smart with my money. I don’t need more money. I go to the airport and turn around because I’m not happy at work.’ That was when I had the conversation to go back to NXT. But I was ready to leave right then. I had accomplished everything I had wanted to achieve by having that goal of the freedom to not sign that contract. When you sign that contract, you know what you sign up for. If you are not happy, then please don’t sign.”
Breeze was asked if he wants to return to wrestling:
“It depends. I mean there’s a lot happening in wrestling right now. It’s cool and it’s something we tell our students at Flatbacks (the wrestling school he and Shawn Spears owns). We say to the students, ‘Guys, it’s not as far away as you think. The students we are training now have been on AEW Dark and NXT. It’s right there. Right now is a good time in wrestling. But right now, let’s say on AEW, there are a lot of people debuting, and there are a lot of people moving around all over the place. If I go there, I don’t know if it would make a massive impact. Now it’s kind of the norm. People are going over there, and there might be some big names going over there. Nobody knows what is happening, but I don’t think now is the right time for me to go there. At the same time, I have wrestled for 14 years straight. I’m Ok with taking a little bit of a break. My body likes it, and I am getting enough wrestling at the school to keep my body good. I’m not currently taking any bookings. Going out there and getting injured, it doesn’t really appeal to me. If there was a match that was fun, I think I might do it, but I have scratched the wrestling itch, but if it comes back, maybe.”
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. Also, be sure to subscribe to “Insight with Chris Van Vliet” on your mobile device by clicking here if you have an iOS device or here on your Android device.
