Nick Aldis discussed his new WWE role as General Manager of SmackDown during an appearance on Busted Open Radio.
He said, “I’d be lying if I said it was something that I was anticipating at this point. But at the same time, I’d sort of made peace with the idea that it may or may not happen. I think I sort of made peace with that several years ago, and I think that actually that was in many ways a sort of turning point that helped me embrace the other opportunities that came my way. I think I might have wasted some time with always having one eye on WWE, and eventually, I had a sort of epiphany where it was like look, they’re either gonna give you an opportunity or there’re not. All you can do is be the best version of you that you can, and show the world your vision of who you want to be. I heard you guys talking about my intro and this new role. You talked about opportunity, Bully, and that’s really the baseline of my approach going forward. You can’t determine what opportunities come your way. You can only determine what you do with those opportunities, and for anyone who is unfamiliar with my past, my experience, I’ve been in this business my entire adult life. This is my profession.”
“I took a godawful Roman gladiator gimmick in 2009 and by 2013, I was the world champion. I took a brand that, if it wasn’t dead, it was on life support, and a belt that was not particularly well thought of, and within less than a year, headlined the biggest independent show in the history of pro wrestling. So for anyone who thinks that I would be disappointed or unhappy or anything like that with the opportunity to be in the biggest sports entertainment show in the world in this capacity, you’re out of your mind. I’m so happy, and I can’t wait to get stuck in. When you think about what I did with those opportunities, this is the biggest opportunity that I’ve ever had, and I’m fully ready to execute.”
(quotes courtesy of Colin Tessier)