He explains why he feels he was not ready for the transition.
From 2010-2012, current NJPW of America commentator Alex Koslov was a part of WWE’s developmental system.
He dove into his transition into the company while being interviewed by Developmentally Speaking. Koslov expressed that he was not mentally prepared for the experience and feels he was also not prepared to be critiqued the way he was.
Koslov would add that there were certain skills needed for WWE that he did not cultivate prior to coming into the company. He said he began to get comfortable once he established popularity in Mexico.
It was rough, it was rough (Koslov said about his transition into WWE). I don’t know. In Mexico, I was a professional already. I felt like a professional, I was looked (at) as a professional, I was on TV and nobody questioned me. Rarely did people question my skills. In fact, my skills were respected, and when I went to WWE developmental, FCW, it was the opposite. I was completely broken down, like picked apart, which is understandable because it’s kind of — WWE is like the Hollywood of pro wrestling. It’s a major multimedia entertainment organization and everything needs to be perfect. But I was not ready for that at all. I wasn’t ready to be micromanaged and picked apart and to be honest with you, I was not ready, I wasn’t ready, I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready for WWE for mentally… It didn’t work out for me because I wasn’t ready mentally, I wasn’t fully prepared for that and also, skills-wise, I wasn’t prepared either. When I became kind of famous in Mexico, I kind of stopped working on myself, working on my craft. Really all I cared about was just being a guy on TV and being famous and I didn’t really train. I mean we worked a lot, we worked five-to-seven days a week. When it was busy, we traveled every day. That was, I suppose, my training but I felt like I could have done more to be better I suppose or at least, let’s just say, there’s certain skills that are required in WWE, I did not cultivate them in Mexico and so in that sense, I wasn’t prepared.
Later in the conversation, Koslov mentioned that there was an idea to put himself and AEW’s Miro on the road together.
There was a point during that time when Koslov requested his release, but John Laurinaitis told him to take a break. Koslov feels like he came back from that break doing better work.
The only ideas, the only path I had over there (in WWE developmental) was me and Rusev. Me and Rusev started tagging but it was kind of towards the tail end of my time there… It was actually the most stressful time of my life over there when I was in FCW. I wanted it so badly but I was not able to, I don’t know, do a good enough job that was satisfactory for them it felt and so I asked for my release and Johnny Ace told me to take a little vacation so he sent me home for a couple weeks and I came back energized and I started to do better work but at that point, it was already too late but they were thinking of putting me and Rusev on the road at that time but, they had to release people and had to make the cuts and I was one of ‘em.
Koslov was on the call for NJPW Resurgence and to hear a review of that show, head over to this link.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Developmentally Speaking with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
