When he realized he wanted to be a wrestler: "There was never a specific moment with me where I turned the corner, said this is the moment where I knew I was going to become a wrestler. I just knew that that was the direction I was going to go for as long as my memory can go back. I didn't know how it was going to come about. I didn't know if there were wrestling schools. I figured there just had to be some way. I was relaxed about it. I just knew somewhere, somehow that I was going to end up being a wrestler. I just somehow in the back of my mind knew that's what I was going to do."

What he'd be doing if he wasn't wrestling: "That's a really hard question to say. I've never been deep enough into anything else to be able to picture myself doing anything else. I started wrestling when I was 16 and this has been my life ever since then. I've been traveling the world, traveling the country. Getting better, learning, meeting people. This becomes your life really quickly and it's hard to see any life outside of this. I'm sure there's a lot of things I would be good at, I'm really talented, but I can't picture myself doing anything else."

On William Regal saying that he is everyone's perfect opponent for the next 10 years: "I'm everybody's perfect opponent? Does that mean I'm just going to get beat up for the next 10 years? [laughter] There's high praise from a guy I have a lot of respect for. It was a real pleasure getting to work with him and really getting to have a really fleshed out feud with him that nobody really saw because, it was on TV in Florida on developmental, but it was [not televised elsewhere]. It was very cool to hear words like that from a guy like that. When I get stuff like that it's still kind of surreal because these are guys that I studied and grew up watching. To be on a level with them where we can talk on the same level about stuff is still kind of surreal for me."

What's next for The Shield: "We're just going to keep upping the intensity of the game. I think we're bringing a lot of energy, a lot of excitement and a lot of unpredictability that may not have been there before. I think we're fresh and different right now. I think we're upping the ante and raising everybody else's game. We're performing at such a high level now that everyone else is trying to keep up. So we're just going to keep running harder, running faster, serving justice where it needs to be served and everybody else is going to have to try and keep up with us."