Tischer was a part of Imperium when he was in WWE.
Guest appearing on the Hitting The Turnbuckle Podcast was Axel Tischer f.k.a. Alexander Wolfe. Tischer is recovering from broken collarbone surgery. He is scheduled to return to in-ring action on August 12th at wXw Germany’s Shortcut to the Top show.
After exiting WWE in 2021, Tischer continued working independents and he debuted for PROGRESS Wrestling in 2022. He shared that the opportunity came about because WWE Intercontinental Champion GUNTHER recommended him.
And especially if I mention it again, PROGRESS, because PROGRESS is very dear to my heart. I remember WALTER gave me the connection to PROGRESS because he recommended me there. Since I broke into wXw (Germany), he’s always constantly there and he’s a very giving man and he likes to help the people who have the passion for it, so of course if you’re smart, and you don’t have the passion, do not want to work hard, he could care less but if he feels like you’re a good guy and you want to do that 100 percent and you’re really behind it and that’s why we clicked a lot because we have the same drive and the same passion for that. He will help you so he helped me a lot. Not only wXw, but also after WWE and again, I’m very grateful that he did that and I built up a good community at PROGRESS.
There was a point in Tischer’s WWE run when he was part of Imperium with GUNTHER, Ludwig Kaiser and Giovanni Vinci. Tischer feels that run was a savior for his career because he got to be just a wrestler again.
He stated that with the SAnitY faction, it got to a point where the group knew that no matter how hard they worked, the powers that be did not want to collaborate with them.
It (run with Imperium) was my second success story in WWE. Most importantly, it was, a little bit, a savior for my career because I have to admit, I was very depressed. Not mentally depressed or anything. I was still in a healthy place mentally but I was in the place of they do not want to work with us even if we work as hard as possible, pitch ideas, do this, do that (Tischer referring to his time with SAnitY). We had a writer who was not bold enough to speak with Vince (McMahon). Even he talked to us, ‘Hey, I had a good talk with him,’ yada, yada, yada. He was never pitching ideas. That probably was pitching ideas because somebody else got our ideas so maybe a coincidence but I don’t believe in coincidence. So it was kind of like, f*ck it. We get paid… We do everything what you can do, we try to control everything which you can control. Of course, you could do more but in that case, you always get a low blow and a ‘no’, whatever and everybody tells you, ‘Oh, everything is fine’ but you know nothing is fine. So, I was kind of depressed. I can’t speak for the other guys but I think it was the same, and we’d been delighted that this group was off and we all had the chance to do something new and almost delighted just to get together with my old friends and just be the wrestler again and not the psychopath. I have to watch out that I don’t do too much wrestling, so now I could go back to my roots; technical, awesome wrestling. Just be crisp again, just be finesse again, just to find bits and pieces. Get European wrestling style over German wrestling style over a little bit of Catch wrestling over the stuff what I personally like which I would love to show the people and hopefully they have fun with it so I was very excited about that. That saved my wrestling career and especially, you know, lighten up my mood about everything so it was less crazy, yada, yada, yada and it was great just to be in NXT U.K. as well because it was pretty new. So, I kind of believe I put a lot of work in there just to work with some other guys and we pushed up the brand again and yeah, before the pandemic, everything went well and they had a lot of big plans and yeah.
Tischer reunited with former SAnitY member Big Damo in PROGRESS. Eric Young, who was with them in the group, returned to IMPACT Wrestling at Slammiversary.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the Hitting The Turnbuckle Podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
