Tyler Breeze wasn’t always a fashionable male model.
Tyler Breeze, one-half of the team formerly known as Breezango, recently appeared on Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette and discussed his time using a male fashion model gimmick and now using some of that knowledge to share with his students at his Flatbacks Wrestling School.
“We tell our students all of the time, it’s the old adage of ‘dress for the job that you want.’ I’m not going to show up as an extra at WWE or AEW and look like a schlub, I’ve got to look like I belong,” Breeze said.
After Paquette noted that she didn’t remember him being much of a “suit guy” in WWE, Breeze shared how his fashion sense evolved over the years.
“So this is funny — when I got hired by WWE, I was like 22, 23, and up until that point I lived in Canada. I worked at a homeless shelter, I worked at a railroad, I did all this random stuff. I lived in sweatpants and hoodies because I lived in Calgary, so I never owned a pair of dress clothes like at all. So when I got hired and I moved down,” he explained, “I was living with Jinder Mahal and I went, ‘OK what do I do here?’ He’s like, ‘Do you have a dress shirt?’ ‘No.’ [He says] ‘Do you have dress shoes?’ ‘No.’ ‘Do you have a belt?’ ‘No.’ I had nothing!
“So he took me to Express, which I had no clue what it was, and I ended up spending like $600 on these v-necks t-shirts and these vests, whatever, and I basically loaded up on this dress stuff because at the time, there’s was kind of a dress code, but not like a suit and tie. It would go through the phases where you’d have to wear a suit and then [it’d be relaxed]. That was my go-to, if I wore some nice shoes with my dress pants and a belt, I could wear a v-neck t-shirt with a vest over top and it looked spot-on. So then obviously, I did that for years and years and years until I was like, ‘OK, let’s step it up to a suit or some designer-looking stuff.’ It’s just one of those things that I try to do with my gear too.
Tyler Breeze told Paquette that in order to live the role of Tyler Breeze on television, his gear couldn’t last too long due to keeping up appearances with the character, but it ultimately turned into a profitable endeavor for him.
“Obviously with the character that I chose too, I have to look a little bit different that the average person because I’m supposed to be this male model, fashion guy. So my gear, I made sure and I told my gear lady, Sue, that I want every [set] to be nice material, I’m probably only wearing it a few times. As soon as I put it on and I walk out of the locker room, I wanted people to go, ‘Oh, that’s cool! That’s really nice!’ And almost 100% of the time, it worked, and I did it the same in my [business-casual wear] like ‘Oh man, look at those shoes, look at this.’ It just became almost a game.”
Paquette then said that it had to be fun putting together the gear, noting that some wrestlers didn’t really stray far from a certain look. Tyler Breeze then revealed he probably turned a profit from all of the gear he had made because he started selling it online after he wore it.
“I’ve actually probably turned a profit off of it from making gear, because almost everything that I’ve worn, I’ve sold. At one point like I would wear something once or twice and then I’d sell it and I’d make money on it and I was like, ‘Great, I’m actually in the green the more gear that I get made and it keeps my look fresh and everything else,’” he said.
The pair then talked about how easy it’s become to sell “event-used” wrestling items, perhaps even too easy because of some of the things fans are willing to buy.
“You’d be very surprised at like random stuff that you’d just throw away and not think anything of it, someone will probably buy it. They’ll buy Randy Orton signed wrist tape, you know what I mean? It’s just how it is.”
Tyler Breeze recently looked back on his NXT TakeOver match against Jushin Thunder Liger and reflected on learning about the bout and his memories of the match itself; check out his remarks about facing the Japanese wrestling legend at this link.
Read More: Tyler Breeze Reflects On Advice He Received From Dolph Ziggler
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