Shawn Spears will finish his career in WWE.
Throughout his four year stint with the company, Spears only performed in 79 matches, mainly due to the fact that he was not used much in both 2022 and 2023. As a result, Spears began to work a select number of independent dates during this time, competing for promotions like Prestige Wrestling and World Series Wrestling.
While speaking to Fightful for a new interview, Spears noted that his schedule with the promotion changed on a number of occasions because they couldn't find a spot for him.
"The schedule changed a lot only because things were, again, moving quick over there and it seemed like I couldn’t find a spot, so-to-speak. I’m somebody who likes to keep going, keep moving. Out of sight, out of mind sort of thing. So if I wasn’t going to find a spot here, I’m going to see if I can work an independent over here. I was doing select ones. I wasn’t trying to go crazy every weekend and be away from my family. That’s a luxury I have been able to afford after 22 years of service. But it was just about more wrestling in certain places and wrestling certain talent, still going out there and having some fun. At the end of the day, that’s what this is supposed to be. It’s fun. My wife got pretty used to the schedule. She’s like, ‘Wow, you’re here all the time,’ and I’m itching to get to work. I’m like, ‘Oh, I just want to get out there more,’ but I don’t want to take too much time away from my family. So now that I am here and I am in town, I’m working every day and I am performing in NXT every Tuesday night. But I’m still home.
Now it’s just about finding the perfect balance, which will come in time. So luckily the schedule has always ended up working out in my schedule, for whatever reason it is. A lot of it is out of my hands. ‘Man, I would like to be in a position where I can see my family a lot more and still have my foot in a wrestling ring somewhere.’ Here we are. It ended up working out. I will say, though, that in a perfect world—this is me hoping—that this is the last stop. This is it. Regardless of my in-ring future here or what not, I can confidently say that I will finish my career here in WWE."
Spears then went on to talk about his return to AEW in October 2022 after grieving the loss of his mother.
"That was a little different only because I was gone for an extended period of time during that time frame because my mother had passed away. She was fighting cancer. We thought we had more time, then a stroke sped things up unexpectedly. So that kind of shut everything down. You’re gonna grieve every day when you lose a parent. In some way, shape or form, you’re just learning how to deal with it. Once I was ready to start getting back out there, I noticed we were going to Toronto for the very first time and I just thought, ‘I’m home with my family anyway.’ Toronto’s always been a second home to me. I always have had wonderful moments there. Takeover: Toronto was there with Bobby Roode. That’s one of the fondest memories of my career. So Toronto’s always been gracious to me. They’ve been very supportive of me and I think that’s what I needed at that time. I think I needed a level of support somewhere. I had support from my wife and support from my family, but I also had to be the one to be the foundation for the other members of my family that, ‘We’re not gonna crack. We’re gonna be okay,’ and they’re looking at me to go, ‘Are you sure we’re going to be okay?’ I go, ‘Yeah. We’re going to be okay,’ but I’m trying to hold it together as well, right? So I think Toronto was the perfect spot and I’d thrown it out there. They said, ‘Yeah, this is the place to do it.’ So thankfully they were as receptive as I was hoping they would be and then that’s where you got the in-ring promo afterwards where I told them why I’d been gone for so long. Normally I don’t do that. I keep a lot of things like that close to the chest, but for some reason, I don’t know why, maybe it was my momma talking, but I felt like I needed to talk with all of them. So it was a very special moment. It was a very special night for me and it was almost very therapeutic for me as well,."
Elsewhere in the interview, Spears revealed that he asked about returning to WWE in the Men's Royal Rumble match. Fans can learn more here.
Fans can check out Fightful's full interview with Shawn Spears in the video linked at the top of this article.
