Quotes from Aleister Black

Was I a fan of WWE? Yeah, of course, but I knew it was not going to be a thing for me, until NXT came to the foreground and a lot of my friends who I was competing against on the independent scene were getting signed.

Everyone's an individual and individuality is such a strong thing in our society so that translates into wrestling.

The transition to WWE has been an incredible road. It's been great, it's been difficult, it's been motivating, and it has allowed me as a person to just completely see myself differently and allowed me to grow in a different perspective with their input.

To a lot of MMA fighters, pro wrestling is a very popular thing and I'm very thankful for them to try and make the transition into professional wrestling. But then they figure out its not as easy as a lot of people think.

Skeptical doesn't have to necessarily be a negative thing. I think if you allow yourself to second guess things and look at things from a distance you don't immediately run into things blindfolded, so that's a positive.

I look at sports entertainment/professional wrestling, whichever you want to call it, I look at it as never done. You're never done learning or getting better or listening, and never done honing your skill.

I watched Japanese style wrestling, European style wrestling, and WCW.

I've never had like many friends, I've had a few. It's just something that's in my character, in my personality.

As a 4-year-old, I saw two men competing in the ring, and I thought it was martial arts. I asked my parents if I could do martial arts. So, I was 5 or 6-years-old, and I was doing karate and jiu-jitsu. Later on, I started kickboxing. Then, it just progressed. I did a little bit of everything, but predominantly, I did kickboxing.

The whole Aleister Black character is a creation of my influences, Triple H and NXT, and everyone combined.

I never felt like the nine to five mentality is for me.

I was a big fan of hardcore music growing up, black metal.

The legacy that The Undertaker has had, I can't even put into words. He changed the landscape.

The occult stuff, I grew up having a fascination about world religion and that fascination grew into other religions and other things and I kind of dabbled my way into the occult and started reading about the occult.

I'm frightened a lot. I feel like it's caused me a lot of obstacles.

I have no interest in having my wife as my manager and I don't think she has to because it would be kind of cliche. It's almost in the line of expectations where it's like, oh of course you're going to put them together, and I don't want that.

My social media is very strict to my character and I've disabled comments on a lot of things because why would the Aleister Black character care about comments?

I think that there are always these opponents that you circle back to that you have made some sort of legacy with and I feel Buddy Murphy is that for me.

I feel like in order for something to connect to an audience there needs to be a form of authenticity.

I think the outside world is more fascinated by the fact that me and my wife are competing against each other than we are ourselves.

I had a vast interest in ghosts and stuff and cryptozoology and every topic that was not normal... if you're reading that stuff at 8 or 9 it has a big impact on you.

Even when you come towards the end of your career, I mean professional wrestling covers such a vast ball of knowledge it is impossible to obtain everything.

I was born in Amsterdam.

I watched professional wrestling at a very early age.