– WWE NXT Star Sami Callihan recently spoke with ESPN on a wide variety of wrestling topics, check out the highlights below:
On not knowing who he became after signing with WWE:
“When I was in the WWE, I’ll be the first person to say that I walked on eggshells and I became a shell of the person that I was when I signed. I allowed too many people to get in my brain. Too many people to pull me in different directions. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I felt like I didn’t know how to wrestle anymore.”
On quitting WWE:
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“I’m not gonna lie, it was scary. When I finally pulled the trigger and really bet on myself that was a scary thing, but I had to bet on myself. I wanted to be a guy remembered for going out on his own way. By leaving on my own terms, it kinda made me a badass character. I quit WWE. Not a lot of people can say that.”
On is hacker gimmick in NXT:
“People didn’t understand the hacker character. I was debuted as the hacker character and told, ‘hey, you’re not the hacker.’ So people would [say], ‘you don’t look like you know who you are out there,’ because I didn’t know who I was because I was told to be six different things from six different people.”
On having support from WWE Performance Center trainers Billy Gunn, Norman Smiley, Robbie Brookside, and Terry Taylor:
“Everyone always said, ‘Dusty liked his broken toys,’ and I feel like I was one of his broken toys,” Callihan said. “He straight up told me one day, ‘you can be the next CM Punk, or you could be the next Chris Jericho if they give you the ball and allow you to be you,’ but it just never transpired. I never got the chance to truly be me in the middle of the ring.”
“I remember before the match Apollo goes, ‘do you tonight. If we get in trouble I’ll take the blame.’ I remember getting pulled to the back from HHH and he was like, ‘where has this guy been for the last year.’ I kinda had to bite my tongue, but lucky enough people like Norman Smiley and Billy Gunn straight up came up to him and was like, ‘this is the guy that’s been main eventing a lot of your house shows against Finn Balor and Kevin Owens and having killer matches, but then it comes to TV and you book him like a jobber.’”