After defeating A-Kid to win the NXT UK Heritage Cup, Tyler Bate spoke with Inside The Ropes, where he opened up on his NXT UK future. Bate shared his thoughts on his own progression as a performer as well, and much more. Check out his comments!
On continuing to push harder after winning the Heritage Cup Championship:
“Well, both, actually, it’s both the pressure and the play. So I like to think of wrestling as… Wrestling is the same as any other artform, like music for example, and I like to think of pro wrestling, at least the way that I approach, as like jazz. So when I watch jazz musicians playing together, a jazz musician has perfected his craft or her craft enough that they are able to leave forms almost, they’re so good that they leave concepts. Forms to leave forms, and that’s how I think of or at least how I approach pro wrestling is that I use structure and form to leave form so that it becomes more of a pure play, almost just playtime. I’m dancing, I’m playing music... There’s like a push and pull that happens with whoever I’m in the ring with, and especially with someone like A-Kid, who’s so good as well, it’s very… It just makes that very fun, this feedback, because he’s pushing at me and then whilst he’s pushing at me, he’s creating opportunities for me to push back and then it becomes this almost like music, this dance type thing… [He claps hands like a pendulum] I don’t know why I’m doing this. That’s how it feels in my head is this motion. I feel like I’ve just trained enough now that, when I go out there, I have the absolute most faith in my abilities as a professional wrestler to just do. I just trust myself enough that I can relax... So here’s a good saying. “We never rise to the level of our hopes, we always fall to the level of our training.”
Picks a match someone who hasn’t seen him wrestle should watch:
"Ooh. It depends on the person. I guess the Pete Dunne Chicago TakeOver one is always going to be… It feels like like that one is timeless, it will never go out of date. I feel like, in any time period, if anybody asks me that question, that’s a match that I feel could hold up. But I also feel the same about the WALTER Cardiff TakeOver match. I feel like that, for me, is like a magnum opus. So I feel like, in my matches, I try not to do or give people fireworks and tricks to just like clickbait people into watching it, I try and make them like timeless classics, because to me, what is true to wrestling is the wrestling part. So for me, my matches are always about the wrestling because it’s the one constant that remains true to wrestling through all time.”
Who NXT UK fans should keep an eye on:
“Um. Kenny Williams, I’ll say Kenny Williams. I think he’s outstanding. There are exciting things to come for him. Who else? I don’t know. I’m struggling to think off the top of my head. Kenny Williams, I feel like Saxon Huxley – there’s a lot of potential there that hasn’t quite been showcased. I’m struggling… Jack Starz!”
Tyler Bate is the first wrestler to hold the NXT UK and Heritage Cup Championships.
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(H/T and transcribed by ITR)
