For a time, Alex Riley looked like he'd be WWE's next big star but he was released by the company after a lengthy stint as an announcer in NXT and then a very brief run as a wrestler. Now, he's working on his acting career and recently turned in a fun supporting performance in Netflix's GLOW.
While you might think Riley embraced his role as part of NXT's commentary team, he's now revealed why that stint was a particularly dissatisfying - and frustrating - time for him.
"Did I like [announcing]? I guess I’ve been asked this question before and this is how I’ve addressed it: No, I did not. I don’t mean to be blunt, but of course I didn’t. I went [to NXT] to be a wrestler, I wanted to be a wrestler very badly and I certainly was athletic enough and certainly had the tools and a lot of tools to be the best wrestler there. I always felt like I had what it took to be the WWE Champion.
"To be 250 pounds and [an] ex-professional football player, and to be sitting behind the desk was highly frustrating for me. That being said, I loved when the red light was on and I was talking WWE, because it was fun and I always was a huge fan of WWE and always knew the product better than anybody else ,and had a great perspective of what it took to not only climb through high school and college to be a semi-professional football player, because I’ve been an athlete my entire life, so you weren’t going to put anybody on that panel that had more athletic experience in different realms and who could give a perspective of what happens inside of the ring. I had my ass kicked in the ring a lot of times and I kicked a lot of ass in the ring so I had perspectives on both.
"But no, absolutely [I didn’t like announcing], because I felt I should have been in the ring and it was about two years of my career that I was in great shape, and [I] proved it when I came off the desk and I wanted to be out there. That being said, I was a part of the company and was able to work extremely hard and give them what I had behind the desk, so in that regard it was a good thing."
It's easy to understand why Riley felt the way he did, especially when he was fit and ready to get back in the ring. Plus, he looked like he was in the best shape of his career when he finally did start competing again but that went nowhere and it took almost no time at all for him to be wished all the best with his future endeavours!
It's thought that Riley's poor standing in the company was a result of an altercation of some sort with John Cena, an encounter he refuses (for now) to shed any light on. I guess we'll never know if WWE made a huge mistake when they failed to keep him around!