Kyle O'Reilly had the privilege of making his own decision.
Kyle O'Reilly ended 2021 by joining AEW after multiple successful years in NXT. As it turns out, he was already joining a very familiar locker room including two members of the former Undisputed ERA.
Speaking on The Sessions with Renee Paquette, Kyle explained how he came to be in a situation where he could make his own decision and choose where he wanted to go, to begin with, and why the familiarity in the members of the AEW locker room was a huge advantage to jumping ship.
"When we are renegotiating the powers that be are like, Listen, this doesn't typically happen. Usually, we resigned guys six months out, but tell relations at the time, I guess let things slip or weren't as into re-upping NXT guys' contracts is the only explanation I could give, I really don't know. But I thought I had at least maybe six months to a year left. It was a real surprise to me knowing that it was coming up in December, pleasant surprise, you know, with the landscape and everything. Like it was really kind of a blessing that I was given the opportunity to make my own decision. Like, I could stay, I can go, it wasn't made up for me."
He continued, "I feel for people who get released and everything and that happens way more than it should. It's awful. I was just grateful that I was, you know, in a position, too, where I can kind of look at the landscape and see what opportunities were out there. Luckily, for me, AEW fell into place, and I was able to jump ship, as it were."
Kyle then reiterated that support that he had from the likes of Shawn Michaels and those that just wanted to see him continue to succeed while also talking about not seeing a place for himself on the main roster and not wanting to be a player-coach at this time in his career.
"As a huge selling point to like, the AEW locker room is full of the guys that I came up with in this business, that I've been friends with for years. There was a lot of that in NXT, too, but seemed like every couple of weeks, you'd look around at the locker room just getting decimated and it's like, that's just not a very good environment, I guess, at that time. I just wanted to go follow my heart and go where I'm going to be happy and go where I'm going to be utilized. I felt to stay with WWE, it was going to be to stay with NXT and I was like okay, well at this point, after four and a half years, you don't really have a spot for Kyle O'Reilly on the main roster. I got the vibe that there wasn't gonna be a spot for me up there."
He added, "Everybody was really supportive. At the time Hunter was off with his health issues, ao I hadn't had a chance to really see or talk with him. But Shawn had been super supportive and just, 'You gotta go where your heart leads you.' They understand that and I think they could tell, too, like, 'As much as we want you here, Kyle, we also want you to be successful,' and Kyle O'Reilly as a character on NXT might not be super successful right now, and that's cool. I'm happy to help guys grow, I just wasn't ready, at the point in my career where I was going to be a glorified coach, you know, where I was going to be training people and I'm sure I would still have had a spot on TV to some degree, but I wanted to go where the getting was good and AEW definitely has a lot of guys that I'd really love to work."
Later, Kyle would talk of being concerned that maybe the passion for the rest of the industry is not present in some of those currently in NXT, but he did not doubt that the brand would still be successful
“Even if I never made a dime in wrestling, and if I was still doing independent shows once a month, I would still be doing it with all my heart and soul because it's really where, you know, my passion does lie. I'm just — I'm fortunate that it did work out. I am making a living now, but I think people in wrestling are really rare in the sense that you really, really have to love it. I think that might be an underlying problem in this new NXT. Like there's a lot of people coming in, but I don't think they really have that true love where — I'm sure they'll do well, and will make a big splash, and be a big star, and make a ton of money. But like at the end of the day, if your heart isn't really in it, I don't know. It's tough.
‘We don't want pro ‘rasslers,’ was something I heard, and I was like, ‘Okay, well, I am a pro wrestler and I want to be a pro wrestler still, so I'm going to go where I can be a pro wrestler, and I know that the things are the same sports entertainment/wrestling, it's all the same, whatever. But I don't know if everyone looks at it that way.”
Now, Kyle is in AEW and picked up right where he left off with Adam Cole and Bobby Fish. Recently, Kyle credited Shawn Michaels with teaching him how to be a main event performer. Learn more here.
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