Shawn Spears recently sat down with Chris Van Vliet for an in-depth interview on his popular “INSIGHT” podcast.
While reflecting on his pro wrestling career, the longtime veteran of the business explained what led to his decision to leave AEW, as well as how his WWE return came about.
The following are some of the highlights from the interview.
On why he left AEW: “I think it just came down to a personal want, in terms of wanting to contribute a little bit more, both in front of the camera and behind the camera. I had a wonderful time in AEW. I have and have had a great relationship with Tony Khan. You’re never going to hear me say anything bad about that guy. Same thing with a lot of EVPs, talent, everything. I had a wonderful time. I got to learn a lot about myself as a businessman, a lot more of what not to do, and a little bit more so of it’s okay to kind of put your foot down. It’s okay to kind of have faith in what you’re worth and faith in your ability and things like that. So it was a really good learning process in terms of being an individual man in a different company. But man, my time there was special, getting to work with all the top guys based on a lot of storylines that I was in with Max and FTR and things like that. So a lot of things that I would have never gotten to do, I think in my career, I was very fortunate enough to do there.”
On what led to the WWE return: “I immediately reached out to Hunter and just said, I am paraphrasing, I can’t remember exactly what I said, just I’m free if there’s interest, the ball’s in your court kind of thing. He just says, ‘What do you want to do?’ I said, ‘I want to contribute.’ And he said, ‘Okay, let me see what can happen.’ Then not long after that, I was in touch and when this presented itself, the chance to come back here, I go hold on a second. So you’re telling me, I get to go back to a time frame that was one of my favorites in my career. I get to be around a lot of the coaches that help kind of build me up to this point and I get to be under Shawn Michaels. I get to understand how he thinks, I get to work and see how he operates. Then I get to kind of pass that knowledge down to kids, and I get to pass that on to students at Flat Backs, and I get to be in my bed every night. Yeah, let’s go. Let’s do this. So it was kind of a no brainer. I jumped all over it.”
