Quotes About Challenges

When I first got to WWE, people thought I was going to be fired within three months. No one liked me; no one wanted me there, whether it was the fans or the people backstage. I had to fight and fight and fight to earn my spot.

I wasn't featured in NXT. I never had a TakeOver match. I never held a title. I wasn't a featured athlete. I knew, going in to SmackDown Live, I had to kick down the door and take every opportunity for what it was, and sometimes in WWE - and in life - those opportunities don't come back.

Wrestling is just a different beast. There is no off-season in WWE. It's week in and week out.

One of the only things that bothered me with WWE and being on every week was blowing off so many great storylines so fast, just out of necessity.

I think I have faced pretty much everyone that is in the WWE.

When I came to WWE - I got signed when I was 23. When I was on 'SmackDown' roster, the main roster, I was 24. I wasn't ready for those responsibilities. I wasn't - I wasn't seasoned enough as a wrestler, as an in-ring performer.

I went through ups and downs in this business and in life, and when I was released by WWE in 2014, I knew I had a wealth of knowledge and an opportunity.

A character like mine, there is only so much you can do from a storyline perspective. You can be that heel authority figure, which I was for a few years in WWE and WCW, and it's interesting, and it's fun, but after a while, you've kind of done everything you can do creatively.

People all the time come up and ask how we do this or how we do that, and there isn't any secret to it. You're just getting bashed with something, and you're either a man and you take it, or you're not. People don't realize the toughness of WWE superstars.

If you come from WWE, you have a thick skin because you're hated on all day, every day.

I know people are going to be surprised to hear me say this because they think I'm such an advocate for women's wrestling... But I truly believe that the best time in wrestling, for me, was when I first got into WWE and they had a strong women's division and they also had girls who strengths weren't in the ring and were more for entertainment.

WWE didn't want RVD to get over when I was there. They tried so much to... to... not get me... to... to... keep me from that. They didn't understand why the fans liked me, because I don't fit the cookie cutter formula, because I am a non-conformist.

To be someplace for ten years or to work anywhere for ten years is a tough deal. But to work in the WWE for that long, knowing how their dressing room is run with this top heavy, condescending 'do this and nothing else' attitude, it gets tiresome.

I don't enjoy the road life or WWE's really hectic schedule.

You know that if you come to WWE and want to maintain a certain level of success, you're going to be busy and gone a lot. It's part of the deal.

When I signed with WWE, a lot of people, even close friends, told me that this place was going to chew me up and spit me out, just because of the way my personality is. It's been an adjustment for me as a human being.

When I came into WWE after Monday Night Wars, it wasn't my greatest time in the business... but they kept bringing me back.

Honestly, I think we in the WWE are very underrated as performers. What we do would be very difficult for even an experienced actor. To go out and sometimes have 15 minutes of verbiage, sometimes have to ad-lib and then, of course, have other variables such as the interaction with the audience, it can be challenging.

The run that I had - which really was, like, four months in the WWE - it wasn't great. But my opening day was great. My opening day was humongous. And then WrestleMania was pretty much my closing card. I did one 'Raw' after that, but that WrestleMania 18 match that I had with Christian, that was a hell of a match.

I was really confident when I left WWE. I was confident that I would have a good time, and I was confident that I could wrestle differently than perhaps people saw me in the last few years with WWE, but I definitely wasn't prepared for this level of everything.

It's kind of a tricky subject because I had a great time in WWE. There were highs and lows, but I cut my teeth there. I met my wife there.

There are wrestlers in Japan. I think they think they can move to WWE, but it's not so easy.

The hardest thing about the WWE is the travel.

For the majority of my career, I worked everywhere but the WWE.