Shawn Spears: My Appearance In The 2017 Royal Rumble Is One Of The Fondest Memories Of My Career

Shawn Spears recalls competing in the 2017 Royal Rumble match.

Spears, who was a mainstay in NXT at the time, shocked fans and entered the match at the #10 spot. Braun Strowman went on to eliminate Spears from the match just five minutes later, preventing Spears from recording an elimination himself.

While speaking to Fightful for a new interview, Spears recalled the memory and talked about how he was cheered on by his peers before making his entrance.

“That goes down as one of my fondest memories, and that’s a lot of people’s, like you’re saying, a fond memory of that era or the Perfect 10 era. Man, it still, every year, pops up in my timeline right around Royal Rumble time. I start getting tagged. It’s always good to see because I’m able to look back on that. The reaction plays a big part. It’s very important to me and its wonderfully appreciated, but at the same time, I think about how I got to that moment, like I said, the peaks and valleys that led up to that. I think the biggest thing to me about that night and I don’t know if I’ve said this—I might have said it publicly on one other person’s podcast—was that as the countdown was starting in Gorilla; so a lot of my peers were in Gorilla with me, a lot of people that I had worked with over the years, a lot of people that had seen or at least heard about my story and rocky road up until this point. As it was counting down, they all started clapping for me before I went out. I’m getting a little choked up about it now because it was just more of a solidified confirmation that, ‘You got here, man. Enjoy the moment. Everything was for this and it was 100% worth it.’ So one of my fondest memories of my career, but more the camaraderie and validation from my peers that night was what I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Spears recalled facing Chris Danger in DEADLOCK. 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.