Former WWE star Trevor Lee (Cameron Grimes) spoke with Fightful on a number of topics, including his time in NXT after arriving in the company.
Lee said, “It was awesome because a lot of those guys were guys that I had been on the same shows with. Some of those guys were on those PWG shows and stuff like that. But you know, Kushida, I always looked up to Kushida. I never got to work with him. He was always in New Japan and unfortunately, I never got to make it over there. Damian Priest, I never got to cross paths with him because he was always in Ring of Honor. So it was cool to be able to have these matchups. Then even I got to work, Finn Balor and a little bit of the later bit of NXT with the COVID era and stuff and he was one of my biggest role models as well.”
On why he enjoyed the shows:
“So it was very cool and it still felt normal to me because those coconut loop shows is what they called them—where you go to the different town, you set the ring up and you do the match—that was very independent style wrestling to me, you know what I mean? So it was very comforting in the sense of like, it wasn’t intimidating already, right? Because when you think of like WWE and you think of like, ‘Okay, well, your first match is gonna be coming out the curtain at RAW, right? With like 17,000 people.’ That’s intimidating, right? You’re like, ‘I don’t know if I’m ready for that.’ But if you could come into it and you’re already under that WWE umbrella and everyone that’s coming to those small shows know these are WWE talent, it’s a lot easier and it’s not as intimidating. So it was so much fun.”
On watching stars compete in the NXT combine:
“It was a lot of fun because I’m very fitness influenced. So like, I love doing those workouts and just like that were like, I wanted to see like, for instance, Claudio Castagnoli a long time ago would release these like crazy workouts of him doing like one-armed like clean and presses and stuff. I remember seeing that stuff being like, ‘Oh, that’s so cool. Let me go to the gym and try that.’ Or John Morrison at one point had like [an article in Men’s Fitness] and he had like this crazy workout. I went and tried it and I could not complete it at all.”
On competing in the combine:
“But like, I wanted to know what the guys that we’re at the top we’re doing. So like that always interests me. So when we got those combines, like I wanted to try hard, but then it’s hard when you’re competing against Montez Ford or you know what I mean? You’re competing against these guys that are just like so unreal athletes that are the true 1%. Like I’m a good athlete, but I’m just like a wrestling fan at the end of the day. Like these are true athletes. So like, you know what I mean? Your Bron Breakkers, your Trick Williams. Like the guys that are just like absolutely bizarre. Like it was so cool to be able to watch them do it and just be like, ‘Wow, I can never do that, but at least I know he won’t beat me up. He can be my friend.’”
You can check out Lee’s comments in the video below.
(H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes)
