Buddy Murphy on NXT Career Frustrations, Being Hesitant to Join 205 Live

Fox Sports Australia held a recent interview with Buddy Murphy discussing being frustrated with the direction of his NXT career and initial hesitations on joining WWE’s 205 Live brand.

On the topic of being frustrated with the direction of his NXT career after splitting from Wesley Blake, Murphy stated the toughest part was not being given the chance to showcase his talents as a singles wrestler for a long period of time. He also stated the main reason he decided to join WWE’s 205 Live brand was due to the lack of direction for his career while in NXT.

“Sitting on the sidelines for that long, it got under my skin a lot because I had so much to offer. I felt like the world hadn’t even seen a glimpse of what I’m able to do. Being in a tag team, it’s on myself but we were the champs and we won the championships early in our careers and that kind of got to our heads a little bit.

We went out there and win, lose or draw we didn’t care and once we lost them and couldn’t get a win, we slowly got pushed down the ladder. Where do you go from there? I didn’t have anything to grab onto. It’s a tough time. I was working my butt off on those live events. I was stealing the show every night but the stage is a lot smaller. There was a time I put a deadline on myself and it was WrestleMania.

I needed to do something because I felt like I was a diamond in the rough that had all the potential in the world but didn’t get to use it. Maybe I was thinking, this isn’t for me? A lot of things were going through my head. I had a little deadline to make stuff happen and 205 was my out and how I was going to showcase to the world who I am and what I am.”

On the topic of his initial hesitations on joining the 205 Live brand, Murphy stated his biggest issues were the amount of weight he needed to drop in order to meet the strict weight limit and wanting to wait for the ideal moment to officially join the brand.

“Dropping 25 pounds was something I was unsure about. It seemed like a pointless adventure in a way. I was sitting in the dark in NXT. I’d lost the championships, our team disbanded, the last time I was on television was when NXT was in Melbourne (mid last year), that was the last time I was seen. I was doing NXT live events and I was stealing the show every night. I felt like I was under-utilised and overlooked. Once that tournament was announced, I thought what better platform? I saw that as the opportunity. I was lucky enough to steal one of the 16-man slots.”

Other topics discussed during the interview included Murphy’s dietary and exercise habits to maintain his weight for 205 Live.