Keith Lee Discusses Backstage Protocol From COVID-19, Reflects On His North American Title Reign, Takeover Moving To USA

NXT superstar Keith Lee recently spoke with Pro Wrestling Sheet where the North American champion discussed his current title run for the yellow-and-black brand, as well as how he's dealing with the extreme change to WWE programming due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. On that..he also reveals how he feels about the NXT Takeover Tampa card, which was originally scheduled for WrestleMania 36 weekend, now being aired on the USA network. Highlights are below.

Thoughts on his current North American title reign:

I feel like I’ve definitely taken the championship and brought some prestige to it. I think that it’s something that’s been visibly noticeable with all the people coming after me lately and I am quite honored to have brought that level of prestige to the championship. Because that’s something, for me, that is extremely important. That’s what I do. I make championships. That’s what I do.

Working without an audience and the backstage protocol from COVID-19:

I think that when you have a passion for this, you do it whether there’s an audience or not an audience. There’s a certain level of competition, particularly when you’re in a triple threat match with your championship on the line with two hyper athletes, that you just kinda have to focus on the battle at hand. But for me, specifically, I am happy that we have those things because it’s something that I feel is necessary for the sake of everyone’s safety. Ya know, it’s a big product. And if any of us goes down with that, then that means a lot of us go down with that. If a lot of us go down with that, then that puts the product in danger and I prefer to keep this ship running. Because for me right now I feel like this is a nice … I don’t want to say escape, but I feel like it’s something else for people to focus on rather than the chaos that’s in the world currently.

The Takeover Tampa card now taking place on USA network:

I just shook my shoulders and said, ‘Ok, we doing business here!’ That’s all I said *laughs*. At the end of the day, it’s about the competition and making sure that people still get these matches. I know that there are people that want to be there, but there are important and pressing matters. And we all have to do our best to control that while also giving the people what they want.