AEW Star Pitched Iconic WWE Royal Rumble Spot (Exclusive)

During an exclusive interview with WrestleTalk, All Elite Wrestling (AEW) star Shawn Spears has revealed that he pitched coming out at the number 10 spot in the 2017 Royal Rumble.

At the time, Shawn Spears was performing as Tye Dillinger in WWE NXT and started a popular ’10’ chant. After seeing rumblings online, Spears revealed that he pitched the idea to Triple H and Michael Hayes, saying:

“I had brought up the idea of actually coming out in the Royal Rumble probably about a month before the actual event because I’d seen rumblings online, tweets and all that kind of stuff…. We were at a set of tapings and I went right up to Triple H and Michael Hayes and said, ‘Hey what if…?’. It kind of solidifies the whole ’10’ thing, could be kind of a cool moment with 50,000 people in the Alamodome I believe we were in. I was performing on TakeOver the night before and (it was) probably going to be a lot of the same fans.”

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Spears revealed that he didn’t hear back from management for months, and was only told that he’d be in the WWE Royal Rumble while he was at the TakeOver event the day before:

“They went, ‘Huh, it’s not booked yet, but we’ll let you know’. I didn’t hear nothing for months, and then all of a sudden we’re at TakeOver: San Antonio and I’m getting ready… as the opening package was playing as I was the first match of the night, and all of a sudden Hunter sticks his head through the curtain and goes, ‘Hey man, tear it up, you’re in the Royal Rumble tomorrow night’ and then stuck his head back. I went, ‘What the…’ and then the ’10’ hit and I had to go out. He literally told me as my music was hitting and I was going out for TakeOver, so little joke on me to see if I got rattled or freaked out, but I couldn’t help but smile from ear-to-ear.”

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You can find other stories from our interview with Shawn Spears on our exclusives page, where he speaks about the formation of The Pinnacle, why Blood & Guts was on TV and much more.

You can watch the full interview here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGVyt4lM1RE

What are your thoughts on the above story? Let us know in the comments on Twitter or Facebook.

• Shawn Spears
• Royal Rumble
• AEW
• wwe

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