In an interview with WWE’s official website, WWE NXT superstar Axel Tischer commented on being the first German recruit to join NXT.
Highlights of the interview are below:
On being the first German recruit in NXT: “I’m really honored and proud to be the first German guy in WWE to get the chance of a lifetime, to prove myself as an entertainer here, first in NXT as an NXT Superstar. I’m really thankful for this and I will do my best, and I think the guys who know me from Germany know that I’ll do my best to entertain people.”
On when he started his career: “I started in 2000 at the age of 13. I was wrestling and then I decided to go to a wrestling club in Dresden. It was nothing professional but it was basic training, knowing how to fall, how to lift. Then in 2006, I decided to go to Berlin to get trained professional by GWF, the German Wrestling Federation. The trainers taught me a lot about the ring stuff. I spent three, four, five years in that school training and then I decided to move back to Dresden to open up my own wrestling club and teach some guys wrestling.”
On his WWE heroes: “One of my favorite all-time wrestling heroes was “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, and my role model always is Brock Lesnar. It’s great to see somebody who works hard enough to get in touch with something and has become gold. He went over to Japan and won a championship, he came back to WWE to be champion again, and he’s a former UFC Champion. What he does and his passion are really just impressive.”
On what he needs to work on down in NXT: “It’s a great chance to go to the Performance Center because it’s so huge and so big. There are 26,000 square feet, seven training rings, strength and conditioning programs, a cutting-edge edit room. It’s the best place to be as entertainers to get really in shape. The Performance Center presents a guaranteed future success for us. I must get in shape right now because I’m not a typical bodybuilder or just a muscle guy. I think I need to work on this a lot and also just roll in the ring. When you practice a lot in the ring, and we have great trainers here, we become better as athletes, and we become better and better entertainers. Most important for me is the promo class with “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes, because he knows everything about entertaining, and this is one of my goals I’d like to reach.”
On his pre-match ritual: “In the indies, I always hit the ring. I just walk around and lay back into the corners just to get in touch with the wrestling ring, because there are a lot of different wrestling rings on the indies. I have no real ritual. Just to be focused. I like to listen to metalcore bands. The band Annisokay has played my entrance music live before.”
The interview is available in full at this link.
