NXT star Alex Riley recently spoke with WWE.com about returning to NXT and the injury that kept him sidelined, the new outlook he has on his career, and much more. You can read a few excerpts below:
How does Alex Riley feel being back in the ring?
It is like being able to breathe again. Not being able to work is suffocating for me. I have another business I run, outside of WWE, but nothing replaces being in the 20-by-20. I tried to keep myself busy by staying in shape and building some other venture of mine, but the world outside WWE is so slow to me now. I felt the same way when I was done with football. I felt like everyone and everything was moving in slow motion, and I hated it. My senses began to dull and I became numb. I have always felt more alive in the line of fire with my back against the wall, and that is what I wake up to every day in WWE. I love it.
How did he get injured?
Well, shortly after my matches with Kevin Owens, I found out I had a second meniscus tear in my right knee. Prior to that, I have no idea. I had hurt my knee in a match in Washington, D.C., almost a year before I had it looked at. At that point, I thought it was like most of the injuries I had dealt with in my life. I figured I’d ice it, give it some time, and 99 times out of 100, the injury just gets better.
I was also coming to the end of my contract with WWE and very badly wanted an opportunity to get back in the ring full-time, and for some reason I got the feeling I was going to be given another look, so I ignored the injury. Kevin Owens threw me over the desk three months later, and I had finally gotten a chance to go be myself again. I can tell you in those weeks that I was in and out of the ring with Kevin Owens, the knee had never felt better. I attribute that to the high I was on from just being back out there. When that was over, I had an opportunity to get it looked at and it ended up being a small meniscus tear. It was a very simple surgery, and off we go.
How has Alex Riley changed over time, and how is he looking at his career going forward?
What you see now wasn’t a choice. I was made this way by a lot of different factors, frustration being No. 1. That, plus being put in a situation where my survival instincts alone took over. If you have a canine and you love him, feed him and don’t ignore him, he will grow to be a sweet, loving, happy dog. Well, in my case, I was not being fed and I had been locked into what has been referred to as a cage and ignored for too long. I was poked and prodded. I need to eat, I need to drink and I need respect to survive. I will not live without these things, I learned over that time. I haven’t had, and still do not have, the respect from this business that I need to survive as a man. But I will get it or die trying. I believe a man has to be good at his job before he can enjoy the rest of his life. This is my job, and it is what I do. It’s now who I am, and the mark I leave here will define my life’s work.
What does he mean by ‘no apologies’?
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.
