Murphy praises Paul Heyman for helping him when he wasn’t getting a lot of TV time last year

WWE Superstar Murphy was interviewed this week on Corey Graves’ “After The Bell” podcast. Murphy talked about his struggles during his WWE tryout, his current run, why he thinks he is the next Seth Rollins and much more.

Here are some of the transcribed highlights:

Murphy on going to FCW for his tryout: “I went there and there were 80 people trying out. Sami Callihan was one of them and I swear to this day that tryout was for him but he got hurt. You know when you’re there, they have their eyes on someone. Sami was hot. He was the indie guy at the time. I thought this was just to get him. He got hurt on day one or day two, but there were these football players and I’m not a big guy. These football players would knock you out of the way. They were like 6ft 6. It was tough to stand out in the pack but they were all falling. By day one, there were maybe 65 left.  By day three, there were 50 because they couldn’t do the workload. They thought this was going to be a cakewalk. I had so much determination and there was nothing that was going to break me. Sometimes I wish I still had that determination and focus. To this day Norman Smiley and Robbie Brookside said it was the toughest tryout they had ever been a part of. You had Bill DeMott, Joey Mercury, Norman, Terry. It was four days of hell and then at the end of it, you had to go promo for Dusty. I was starstruck by these people and I had to go and blow them out of the water.”

Murphy said originally he did not want to be in a tag team: “I remember getting a call from Blake saying I need to come in for promo class because Dusty wants us to do a promo. I was thinking, I don’t want to be a tag team, I’m a singles star. I maybe wrestled two matches at this point and I broke my jaw and had it wired shut. I had two matches. I wasn’t a singles star but I didn’t want to be held back. We ended up doing that thing (promo) with me and Blake and he (Dusty) loved it. He thought we looked alike. I didn’t see that but he thought we looked alike. We started to do promos together and we started to get some reps working live events. He was a cowboy at the time. We ended up talking to Bill and he said, ‘Don’t invest in this.  This is not a thing. We are just getting you reps.’ As soon as we walked out, I told Blake we should get matching gear. We did that. Mine says Murphy, his says Blake. They look the same. We ended up doing a dark match with The Revival. When we put on our matching gear, they (the office) loved it. It was like they never saw matching gear on a tag team for like 15 years. Obviously, we looked the part. We became a tag team and started working The Revival and Jordan and Gable and so many awesome tag teams.”

Murphy on working with Seth Rollins: “It’s cool to work with him in the ring and to be in the ring with somebody of his caliber. I also got to learn being by his side and seeing it at ringside. I’ve had good matches. I feel like I’m a wrestler’s wrestler. I’ve had my 205 matches which I went out there and I felt like I killed it every time I went out there. Then I went to SmackDown and got lost in the shuffle and accidentally in the background, I wrestled Roman and killed it. I wrestled Bryan the week after that and killed that. I wrestled Ali the week after that and killed that. Then I was off TV and I’m wondering, what’s going on. I feel like I gave two of the best matches of the year back to back and then I’m not seen again. Then Paul Heyman wanted me on Raw and much respect to Paul. He pulled me aside and he said some real kind words to me. He wanted me to come to Raw and asked if there was anything holding me to SmackDown. I said I want to put my best foot forward. I got drafted from SmackDown to Raw last year.”

If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit After The Bell with Corey Graves with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription