When Tyler Breeze was really cooking in NXT, it looked like his act was destined to be huge for Vince McMahon on the WWE main roster.
On paper, he had everything a WWE fan could want in a successful act; he was good in the ring, had great charisma on the mic and in skits, and seemingly had a niche where he could operate as a unique act on the main roster. Give him the right push, the right opponents, and enough chances to show off his personality, and there's no way Mr. McMahon couldn't pick up the ball from Paul “Triple H” Levesque as a booker and run up the score.
… except, per Breeze himself, the feeling was not mutual between Levesque and Mr. McMahon, and his character died a slow and painful death on the main roster as a result. Discussing his title run on Busted Open Radio, Breeze disclosed why he was unable to keep his momentum alive and why Mr. McMahon ultimately led him back down to developmental before his eventual release.
“I have an idea (of why I went from the presentation I had in NXT to where I ended up). So I knew once we started kind of got rolling with NXT, we were creating something special and the group of people that we had, and again, at the time, it's all about time and place and we were at the right place at the time with the right people and luckily, I was prepared enough and given the opportunities at these TakeOvers and these big events to deliver and kind of show what I can do so, once it got to that point in NXT, I knew it was a matter of time before I probably got called up. It's just the nature of the beast and how it goes. You can't stay in that atmosphere or stay the NXT guy forever,” Tyler Breeze said via Post Wrestling.
“So when I got called up, I kind of had an idea, you know what I mean? It's not like you're clueless going into this thing that, like, I'm not the biggest, so that's automatically working against you. I was very much a character that you're either gonna love it or you're gonna hate it. I don't know if there's a middle ground, and when I came up, I just don't know if Vince (McMahon) saw the same thing that Hunter did, and that's why he paired me with Summer Rae immediately, which I love Summer, she's great, but at the time, I was kind of in the groove of my thing, and I was very specific on how I made Tyler Breeze where you didn't really know if he was heterosexual or — I was right on the fence, you know what I mean? But the thing was that he was in love with himself, so I didn't need a tag partner, I didn't need a manager, I didn't need a girl, I didn't need a guy, I didn't need anything, and as soon as they paired me with her, I went, ‘Okay. This is already changing the dynamic of what it was in NXT. So we'll kind of have to see where it goes from here,' and as the ball started rolling, I just kind of went, okay, I don't know if he takes this seriously enough or if he thinks I'm too small or whatever it is and it just never really got the same opportunities on a TakeOver or something like that for NXT and just, you know, kind of does what it does where you blend into the pack of people that are there until you kind of get proactive again because you go, man, I'm not getting used here. I should probably think of something. That's when me and (Dirty) Dango found each other and started doing the Fashion Files and everything else…”
Would Breeze's run on the WWE main roster have shaken out differently had he been called up in 2022 instead of 2016, working exclusively under Paul “Triple H” Levesque on the main roster? Maybe yes, maybe no, but unfortunately, fans will likely never know, as WWE appears only interested in Breeze as a host of UpUpDownDown, instead of as a wrestler.
Tyler Breeze details his awkward interactions with Vince McMahon.
Elsewhere on his Busted Open Radio appearance, Tyler Breeze decided to disclose his actual interactions with Vince McMahon in WWE, and needless to say, it needs to be seen to be believed.
“One of the reasons why I never wanted to go up and knock on the door (of Vince McMahon) is because what if I don't know — and this is just one of those funny, weird, personal things, but what if I don't hear what he says? What do I do? Do I just walk in, or do I not walk in? That's always one of those thoughts in your head, so I'm like, ‘Okay, let's just do it, let's do it,' and I go, oh, (Dirty) Dango obviously, he's got some experience here, he's talked to Vince, he knows the right stuff, I'm gonna trust him. So we walk up to the door, and there's no one standing there, and I go, alright, here's the thing. So I walk up, I knock on the door, and I just hear (a grunt noise), and I go, ‘Oh no,' and so I look over at Dango, and I go, ‘Do I go in? Do I not go in?' And he goes, ‘Yeah, just go in.' I said, ‘Alright.' So I open up the door, and Vince is laying on a massage table getting a massage, and he just looks up, and he goes, ‘Not now,' and I go, ‘Alright,' and I close the door, and Dango's rolling on the floor. He's just laughing his head off, and I go, ‘Why'd you tell me to go in!?' He goes, ‘I don't know!' He goes, ‘I would've gone in too,' and I was like, ‘God!' I was like, of course, the one time I go to talk to him, it's that, and that kind of sums it up,” Breeze said.
“The other time I talked to him, I was dressed as Nikki Bella, and it was just kind of like, alright, and he just wanted to see how I looked, so I walked in, he was sitting in a chair in the middle of a room, and I go, ‘Hey Vince,' and he goes, ‘Haha. Yeah, cool,' and I go, ‘Alright,' and so it's like, that was my interactions with Vince up until that point.”
Had Breeze's interactions with Mr. McMahon been a bit more… normal, could it have helped out his career prospects? Sure thing, but hey, all things considered, it makes for a fun story now.