Shawn Spears is thrilled that he managed to keep his return to NXT a surprise.
The former Tye Dillenger left AEW in December when his contract expired and returned to NXT last month.
He made a shock appearance, attacking Ridge Holland on the February 27 episode of NXT. This was his first appearance in the promotion in over five years.
Spears spoke with Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful recently, talking about his return and how he managed to keep it a secret.
“We understand how the world works nowadays. Everybody wants the information and a lot of people want to be the first to read the information. 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 told her ‘don’t tell your friends, don’t tell your best friends, don’t tell anybody.!
“So I didn’t tell my family, I didn’t tell anybody. The main people that knew was Hunter [Triple H], Shawn [Michaels], his team here. 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 in the building.”
Shawn Spears Loves Being Suprised In Wrestling
Shawn Spears loves being surprised in wrestling, as he explains as he continued. The former NXT Superstar gets excited when thrown a curveball, which is why he made his return in the way he did it.
“It was just a matter of keeping things as tight-lipped as possible. I get excited too when someone shows up out of the blue and I get excited when ‘oh this is gonna happen’ and then they throw me a curveball and I go ‘Oh! I didn’t see that coming!’. Like, I love that feeling. In a day and age where information is so accessible, or things are taped, aired in advance or spoilers get out, its nice nowadays to be hit off guard.”
“That was our goal. Kudos to Shawn Michaels, Matt Bloom, Johnny Russo, who’s the lead writer in NXT. They set that debut setting up to a masterpiece tee. To be a part of that and to feel that moment, it was a home run in terms of ‘Ah! There he is! He’s back!'”
