Sami Callihan, who worked in WWE NXT from 2012-2015 as Solomon Crowe, recently spoke with WSVN-TV Entertainment Reporter Chris Van Vliet about various topics including the reason he asked for his release from the company, Triple H and more. Here are the highlights:
If leaving WWE was the best decision of his professional career:
“Absolutely. Because I’ll be the first to say that I wasn’t Sami Callihan when I went there. I changed who I was, walked on eggshells and for lack of better terms, I became a b—h. I wasn’t myself and if I could go back and do it again I feel like it would be a whole different story. But I tried to change. I tried to become everything they wanted me to be instead of sticking to my guns and ride or die. But I think everything happens for a reason because now I’ve left and become one of the biggest stars in the world again despite not being backed by that WWE machine.”
“I was lucky that everything I did at WWE was on good terms. I was a model citizen. Like everything I do in my life, I don’t half ass things. I was a model citizen at the Performance Center and did everything they wanted me to do. I did extra training. I would help with promo class. Anything that was every asked of me. When I was injured, I would do commentary just to show my face. I made really good relationships and when I left they said the door is open, just go out and do what you gotta do.”
Working with Triple H:
“Triple H is one of the boys. People can say about him what they want, but being in the power position that he’s in he would stay after NXT tapings for hours. NXT wrestlers would be lined up out the door waiting to talk to him and maybe not every time, but the majority of the time he would stay there until he talked to every single person that wanted to talk to him. We knew that that was the boss and his input was what we actually needed.”
H/T Wrestling Inc. for the transcriptions
