“When I became a bad guy, I felt like I lost a genuine connection with fans. It was like they don’t know how they feel about me or whether they still want to like me or what it was. It was a genuine disconnection. Sometimes I still think about like, man, I wonder if I never would have done that, where I would be now, or if I would be better or if I would be worse off.”
“But then I think about times like during the pandemic. I don’t know if that character would have been able to last through the pandemic and have the type of success that I did then. I always credit them allowing me to have that moment and them allowing me to explore my growth because I didn’t feel that what I was doing at the time was going to extend my career any longer. I knew I needed to turn that page and just make something different happen.”
“As a fan, I wanted to do everything—I wanted to be a bad guy, I want to be a good guy, I want to get married on WWE, I want to have all the crazy storylines. That was the first taste of doing something different for myself. I catered to a lot of fans coming in, but that was something I felt I needed for my career. I don’t regret that at all.”
