Alex Riley Speaks Out - Breaking Out, The Miz, More
Marvel.com recently interviewed Alex Riley. Here are some highlights?
On His Recent Break Out: Oh my god, it's a dream come true. You can never expect it?well you can expect it, but you're not ever sure it's going to happen. You're dealing with twenty thousand people out there that may or may not react and your job is based on the fact that they do react. You need them to react. So you do the best you can and to try to be as close to yourself as possible and to put on a great performance and hope at the end of the day that they buy into what you're doing. So the fact that they are behind me this quickly is amazing. And I can't wait to give 'em more, to be honest, because I think once you crack through, it gets easier and easier. So I'm excited, I think it's amazing and it's been a dream come true and the last three weeks have been awesome for me.
On Facing Miz Sunday: I get to prove that I'm not a guy that just needs to carry a bag to have a WWE career; and he can prove, if it happens this way, if he does end up winning, that maybe he didn't need me?who knows? That night and the last three weeks have been very real, and what you see out there is two guys that truly feel the way they do and I think that's why the crowd reacted the way they did. It's because they knew this was not just a performance, that there was a lot of truth to what was going on.
On Advice Miz Gave Him: He used to always talk about being smart all the time. When you see it on TV, you see a bunch of guys that are beating the crap out of each other and talking trash to each other, doing it night in and night out, week after week. You don't really see how smart you have to be to be a part of this company for a long time. He's such a professional and I learned so much just by watching him prepare for Monday Night Raw or prepare for a show in Miami that's untelevised. To take the same amount of enthusiasm with him everyday to work, no matter where he is, it's inspiring. He's always reminded me to just be smart and to evaluate every situation, because every situation you're put in [with] the WWE is different. You can be on the East Coast one week and the West Coast the next week. The crowd's different, the environment's different, and who you're working with is different. So you have to be smart and you have to be very attentive to what a crowd wants to see. Maybe tonight they don't want to see me and The Miz headlock each other and work around for 10 minutes. Maybe they want to see us just kick the crap out of each other and you need to know that and you need to be always evaluating the different situations and I think he does that very well, if not better than anybody in the company.