Shawn Spears Talks Departure From AEW, Says He Jumped On The Opportunity To Return To NXT
Shawn Spears talks leaving AEW and returning to WWE.
In December 2023, Shawn Spears announced that he was leaving All Elite Wrestling. This news didn’t come as a shock to many fans, as Spears had only wrestled for the company on a handful of occasions throughout 2023.
On the February 27 episode of WWE NXT, Spears did shock the world, as he returned to NXT and attacked Ridge Holland.
While speaking to Fightful for a new interview, Spears spoke about leaving AEW and noted that it was an amicable decision.
“It’s very important to me. I am somebody who, for whatever anybody wants to say about me throughout the course of 20+ years that I’ve been doing this, one thing that’s gonna be hard for them to say is that I have been unprofessional. I’m a very big believer that in ‘professional wrestler,’ that word ‘professional’ is paramount. It’s key. It’s almost more important to me than the second word that comes into play. It was amicable. Absolutely. As was me leaving WWE in 2019. Again, I like to think that over the years I have accumulated a level of respect from my peers, from the people that employed me. There’s obviously a two way street there with a great deal of respect. So having things like that will prevent things from being nasty. They don’t need to get to that point. It was just a time that I felt it was best for me, best for my family and as difficult as some decisions are sometimes, it’s nice to know that mutual respect can allow things to go smoothly. Much smoothly than they may.”
Spears went on to talk about returning to WWE and how he jumped on the opportunity to join the NXT brand.
“It was important to me to be able to come back to this company. That was the first big question, of whether or not it was a possibility. Once the possibility was a definite possibility then it became about, what is the best course of action to take going forward? Let’s be honest, let’s be clear as day. I’m not gonna tell you guys anything you don’t already know. WWE’s on fire across the board. The numbers have never been better and I don’t know all the numbers. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t know all the numbers. But what I do know of them is that we’re smashing record after record. The attendance is going through the roof, merchandise is off the charts. That wheel that we talked about is spinning faster and stronger than ever. So to be able to come back into that and be a spoke on that wheel again and be able to contribute in anyway that I can is massive. Once the opportunity came to come to NXT, I jumped all over it. There’s gonna be people watching this right now that are saying, ‘Why wouldn’t you want to go to RAW? Why wouldn’t you want to go to Smackdown?’ NXT is also killing it. I’ve been here for a couple weeks now and I have seen talent that has blown me away. What I love about that is that it takes me back to when I first started training or reminds me of my time here in the Performance Center being in the spot that they’re in right now, knowing where they’re going to have the possibility to go, the things they’re gonna go through. I’m able to help guide in that sense, too, with my time here at the Performance Center. My responsibilities in WWE are a little more than just in the ring. That is something that I don’t take likely and something I am massively interested in. At the end of the day, what it boils down to after a conversation with my wife, I get to wake up every morning and see my son and play with him and do whatever I need to do and then I get to be home in my bed every night, sleeping beside my wife. So in the middle of that, the in between that, if I get to go hang out and learn from the Shawn Michaels of our world or the Matt Blooms or I get to be a big kid in between those very important things, and I get to do that every day. Tell me how I made the wrong call. Tell me how I made a bad decision there, man.”
Spears then went on to chat about his negoitations with WWE, mentioning how the company wasn’t even bringing people a year ago due to the hiring freeze.
“I think it kinda goes back to the respect and the mutual respect and the contacts that I have made over the course of a pretty lengthy career. I had a few friends that still work in WWE and I’ve kept in touch with them all throughout the years that when it started getting floated out there that I was leaving my previous stop, then it was more about, ‘Well, what do you want to do next? Did you want to come back? Do you want us to reach out?’ Everybody was offering a helping hand, so-to-speak. Eventually what it boiled down to was me just, after having conversations with my wife and weighing out what was best for us timing wise, I reached out. I reached out and thankfully there was a possibility there. That’s the thing. You said, ‘A year ago, there’s nothing happening. A year ago, no one’s getting hired.’ This business, and you probably know better than anybody else, it changes almost daily. It’s ever evolving. It’s fast and when we’re talking about the biggest company in the world, when we’re talking about WWE, who is beyond global—to the point we’re talking universe—it is a massive company, it is a massive, fast machine. So things are going to change and business takes precedent. So if there’s an opportunity or a star like a Cody Rhodes available, you’re going to take him. A star like Jade, you’re going to take her. It’s
just good business. Even Lexis King, who you mentioned, there’s a big difference between a Lexis King now and Brian Pillman that you’ve seen before. A lot of it is just the big WWE machine that has a
wonderful history of making superstars. So, yeah. It came about rather quick and happily quickly. It’s an ever changing business and you never know who’s going to pop up when. That’s the biggest thing I was happy about, is that we were able to keep things a pretty quiet until we unleashed it in NXT.”
Spears was then prompted to talk about keeping his return a secert, as he noted that he didn’t tell his family or many of his friends.
“That first quote I gave you, it’s spun you guys—left, right and center. Yeah, and that’s the thing. We understand how the world works nowadays. Everybody wants the information and a lot of people want to be the first to reveal the information. But this was pretty much kept close to the chest. I didn’t tell a lot of friends. I didn’t tell a lot of close friends. I told my wife and I told her, ‘Do not tell your friends. Don’t tell your best friends. Don’t tell anybody.’ I didn’t tell my family. I didn’t tell anybody. The main people that knew was Hunter, Shawn, his team here and that was pretty much it. A lot of the coaching staff had no idea. The talent had zero idea. I was kept in a room for the majority of the day. Even when that news broke that Shawn had stood in for me, I was there. I was already there. I was already in the building. It was just a matter of keeping things as tight lipped as possible. Because I get excited, too. I get excited when someone shows up out of the blue. I get excited when, ‘Oh, this is gonna happen,’ and they throw me a curve ball and I go, ‘Oh, I didn’t see that coming.’ I love that feeling. In a day in age where information is so accessible or things are taped or things are aired in advance or spoilers get out or
stuff like that, it’s still nice nowadays to get hit off guard. So that was our goal and kudos to Shawn Michaels, Matt Bloom, Johnny Russo—who’s the lead writer here in NXT. Setting that debut, setting that to debut a masterpiece tee, to be a part of that and to feel that moment, it was a homerun in terms of, ‘Ah, there he is. He’s back.’ So shout out to those guys. Obviously, wonderful minds. But big, big, big shout out for being able to keep it quiet as long as they did. Because it was probably about four weeks we were able to keep things quiet.”
Fans can check out Fightful’s full interview with Shawn Spears in the video linked at the top of this article.
Furthermore, Fightful will have full coverage of NXT on Tuesday, beginning at 8 p.m. EST. Fans can see the updated lineup for the show here.
