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Mike Johnson: You had the chance to be in a “big situation” a couple of months ago, when you appeared at the Survivor Series pay-per-view. Thoughts on that experience? Did it give you a taste of what the Raw and SmackDown roster might be if you ever decide in the future, or WWE decides the time is right for you to shift over there? What were your thoughts on representing NXT as a whole, as part of Survivor Series?
WALTER: Yeah, for me personally, like Survivor Series, I never believed in the brand wars kind of thing, because I always kind of focus on myself and the group. The group would be Imperium, that's where my focus is. And professional wrestling, for me is a competition. And then the way it's a singles match or it's a tag team, or six man tag, eight man tag, whatever you can ask. But if it's a match up where it's 15 people combined, separated in three teams, and it's always three guys in the ring at the same time. That's kind of when wrestling for me turns into the action show, so I more or less got caught up into something I wasn't personally invested that much, so I would rather see it as a mistake for myself. And yeah, I think I failed ultimately in certain things and I learned from that, and it reminded me where my focus should be. And you know, my focus should be on things like that Saturday. Like that kind of wrestling, that kind of competition. That's where my focus is, yep, that's fine. It falls on that.
Mike Johnson: You've had a quite a global journey, working Big Japan and WXW and all these promotions all over the world before signing with WWE. I want to ask you about the talk, almost an urban legend now. about you. There has been sort of talk that you have refused to move to the United States, and that allegedly you have made it clear you will never move out of Europe and that you'll always be Europe based. Is there anything to that or is that just one of those stories that are floating around that just happened to get passed around?
WALTER: No, no, that's very true. It's a true story. Yeah. My base is in Europe and I don't want to change that, because I like the way of living in Germany and I like my life I have there. Yeah. I can only be a good performer to the company and also to the fans if I'm a happy person in real life. I don't believe that living in America would be for me. That's why. Yeah. It's always important to me to dig into wrestling and work very hard for a certain time, but then also be able to go far away from it and disconnect for a while and refresh my mind. And I think that's how I can stay fresh and keeps me able to perform on the level I perform now, but also keeps me interesting to the fence.
Mike Johnson: As a, as a member of the NXT UK roster, you have a chance to work at a lot of WWE veterans including Shawn Michaels. What's it like, deriving knowledge and learning from talents who have been all over the world and headlined WrestleMania? What's the experience like getting that information and getting that guidance, when you've kind of had the longevity and ability to know who WALTER is your entire career and what works for him? What's it like when you get outside information or outside opinions on ways to tweak things or try and improve? Is it something that you enjoy, or do you feel confident, like , "I know who WALTER is, and this is who WALTER should be"?
WALTER: If you think you know everything, in reality you know nothing. That's what it is. It's like everything in life is a constant learning process. And well, students of whenever it is professionally, whatever the professionals we have, or in general a student of life, because things develop and things change. And you've got to adapt and do all, yeah, everything is a learning process. And yeah, like you mentioned working with like Matt Bloom and Shawn Michaels and all, Triple H or William Regal. That part is one of those things, when you think back as a little boy you were once that, yeah. At some point you now you work with those guys. You interact with them on one level and have very productive conversations and stuff. This is ah, yeah, if you step back a little bit, it's still very and amusing and surreal thing that is actually happens, but that's not how you can see when you're in the process, because at that point we are all professional and we all got to work together. And so far, there has been no negative experience when it comes to that. Because all the input I got so far from those kinds of people in general, the coaching stuff at NXT has been positive, and has been beneficial for me. So yeah. And also like working with those kinds of people. Yeah, made me become more confident about myself and also confident with the work I do in the ring, and they've definitely helped me to become better, and become way better than I was before.
Mike Johnson: For some fans who only follow the other brands, but might not be following the NXT UK brand, what do you say to those fans as to why they should be making sure that they watch NXT UK every Thursday? What is it about that brand that you and so many other talents over in Europe and England have such a pride for? What is it about that brand that fans should be paying attention to if they're not already?
WALTER: They should watch NXT UK because they should watch Imperium. That's the main line because, and also, I think it's NXT UK, but right now also in NXT UK, it's not necessarily the UK wrestlers who are like the main guys. And some of them are, but not all of them. It's right now a lot of the non UK wrestlers, it's like Irish or German, Austrian or Fabian is Italian. It's those guys who are able to finally have a platform to show what that style of wrestling is all about, because I think all of the recent, let's say five, six, seven, even 10 years, a lot of British wrestlers made it over to US and made their careers very successful in the United States. But the door was always seemed to be closed for like German speaking wrestlers. I think myself and you know, like the other guys that had been NXT before smashed the door open. And I think we can introduce a more serious and more physical approach of professional wrestling than an American audience maybe might be used to. So I think it's a very interesting context to what they usually used to watch on the American brand. So I would say it's more physical, and I would say it's more…more technical. So yeah, that might be the biggest difference between us.
Mike Johnson: You mentioned your physicality, and obviously when you say that people are going to think about the big heavy chops that you throw. Has there ever been a moment where you've hit someone so hard, you're like, "Okay, maybe I shouldn't have done this that hard"? We've seen all those photos of chests caving in and bruising. I can't imagine how your hand feels two or three days after when you've gone through a heavy match like you've gone through with Joe Coffey at Takeover, and or Tyler Bate, or one of those talents. Has it ever been a moment where you're like, "Yeah, maybe I should have just put a headlock on instead"?
WALTER: No, never. Sometimes I hit people so hard that my own arm or my own hand would hurt. That's when I thought I should maybe switch to something else, but I don't really care about the opponent's feelings about that, because professional wrestling is a physical sport, and to be authentic in this sport, you got to be physical. And yeah that's, so never had the thought.
Mike Johnson: All right. Before we get out of here, two more questions. Obviously, there was a situation where the NXT UK title was stolen. I know you were bestowed a new championship by William Regal at the TV taping. Was the original belt ever recovered? Have we ever heard any update on that?
WALTER: No. Never. Also like I always saw on reports, I don't know, it kind of seemed people thought the title specifically got stolen, which isn't the case. Because I was about to be on a two week tour, and that was just the second day of it, and all the luggage got stolen, and it was just in there. That was the real happening, but yeah, nothing has been recovered, and somebody, yeah, I guess the guy or the person stole it must have been very surprised when he opened the case.
Mike Johnson: I'm sure at some point it'll resurface. Hopefully it ends up back in your hands at some point. I really do hope it happens. Sorry. Sorry that it happened. OK, so last question before we get out of here, Worlds Collide will be this Saturday. What are you looking forward to beyond Imperium versus Undisputed Era? Is there another match on the card that you're excited about personally?
WALTER: Oh yeah. I'm also very interested in seeing Finn Balor and Ilja Dragunov. Because I've always enjoyed what Finn Balor has been doing even before his time in WWE. And Ilja Dragunov, I think, is one of the hottest prospects of wrestling in Europe. And he's living in Germany as well. And I competed with him several times over the last year. So his path is a very interesting one, and he's are very interesting wrestler, a very intense wrestler. So yeah, I'm very looking forward to that match too.
Mike Johnson: All right, well I thank you for the time, sir. I know you've got to run. This Saturday, Worlds Collide, Imperium versus Undisputed Era, NXT UK versus NXT. WALTER, I thank you for sitting down with us, and we wish you nothing but success and happiness in the future, and we appreciate you sitting down and talking to us, sir.
WALTER: Thank you very much.
WALTER leads Imperium to the ring against Undisputed Era this Saturday on the WWE Network Worlds Collide special, live from Houston, Texas. PWInsider.com will have complete live coverage.
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