Former WWE star Tyler Reks recently spoke with Journey Of A Frontman. Here are some highlights:
Advice for wrestlers that get released:
“That’s a tough one. They can always come work for Body Spartan! (laughs) The door is wide open for any of my brothers in the wrestling community to come take part and be apart of the team. But on a separate note, as far as starting a business, I was lucky enough that I have a degree in civil engineering and I’ve always been an internet geek, that I was able to start something from scratch. I started an internet marketing company with my brother in law. I would just say for the guys out there, wrestling is not the end all. There is life after wrestling. You just have to stay motivated. It’s like in the book where I talk about finding motivation for being in the gym, the same goes for life outside wrestling. Gotta be motivated to go make money. Be innovative. Be entrepreneurial. Don’t get caught up in the rat race cause if you’re wrestling, you don’t wanna be in the rat race anyway. You’re meant for something different with all the ways to make money out there. I encourage guys that if that happens, call me, tweet me, I’d be happy to chat with you. I do start ups all the time and we help brand new companies with their branding and with their digital marketing. Any of those guys, man, I’m happy to have a free consult, sit down to do a phone conference, and hopefully get ’em on the right path.”
The Fall Of Zack Ryder:
“It sucked. The guy has such a massive following and I don’t know what to say about it, but it’s a bummer deal. Personally, I think they should have just kept him riding the wave, but I felt like he got buried. I don’t know whose call that was, but at the end of the day, he got buried. Guy’s still alive and kickin’. He refuses to go down! He just keeps swingin’ and just coming back, so more power to him. He’s a great guy, good buddy of mine. And he’s just so innovative. His fans and followers love him. He’ll bounce back. He’s an asset for sure.”
Thoughts on CM Punk and him walking out:
“That’s a tough one, man. Punk’s a hard guy to read. We got along, we weren’t enemies by any means, just friendly. I didn’t know him, I wouldn’t call him a friend, just an acquaintance. There’s some guys you click with and some guys you don’t. Punk and I didn’t click where we were like, “Hey, let’s go hang out.”, but he was always friendly to me. Sometimes he would offer advice, real good advice too. And of course I’d take it. But he’s just a quiet guy and he’s hard to read. I really couldn’t answer that effectively for ya.
“I’ve heard a lot of different things. I heard he was burned out, I heard he was upset that Dave came back and him main eventing at Wrestlemania, I heard it was about pay for certain pay per views. That was something that I never had a chance to be upset about and I can see if you’re a top guy like Punk where you are on every show and every media event, you’re the draw and pulling the weight. I can see where he’d be upset and burned out. The travel schedule was so hard. A guy like me on the low/midcard, if I can even say that, our matches were short. We didn’t get to do anything what I would call super fun, we never got to use chairs or whatnot, they save that for the main eventers, but it also takes a toll on the body. The amount of match time Punk had, the amount of bumps he takes, top rope stuff every night with that elbow drop, it’s gonna take a toll on your body. I can completely understand. Whatever his reasoning is, more power to him.”
On the transition from Johnny Curtis in NXT to Fandango:
“I loved his NXT gimmick. That creepy character that Curtis had during NXT Redemption where he was kind of like a little creepy, a little pervy, that was like him just being silly. He would do that kind of stuff all the time while joking around. We used to call him Creepy Curtis. I loved the gimmick and I thought it was great. I think they changed it because I think Hunter and Vince wanted a character, something over the top that people could latch onto. The Creepy Curtis character was good, but obviously it doesn’t stick in your mind the way the Fandango character does. You see him in those pants, the whole character put together and I remember him. I know exactly who he is and what he does. But I think parts of that character from NXT carried over to the Fandango character too. You can kind of see that in him.”
