I understand that people think that because there is a certain element of me that has stepped over to the dark side, but there is only one Undertaker and I can never fill that void. And there is only one Aleister Black, and I am the first one, and there will never be a second one.
I'm lanky and I've always been lanky, but I was a really good athlete. Everything I've ever done in sports, I've done at a high level. I had a passion for what I was doing, and I had to be the best at everything.
I feel like in order for something to connect to an audience there needs to be a form of authenticity.
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.
Professional wrestling in Europe is more of a sub-culture. It is not as popular as it is here in the United States. The people that were drawn to it were also people that were into sub-culture, hardcore sub-culture. It is basically an alternative scene that is sub-culture.
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.
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.
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 started training wrestling in the pre-social media era and I was very cautious - I thought, 'I can't have people know my real last name.' So I changed my last name to End because I always called myself 'The End.' I thought that was cool. I thought I'd take my real first name and my 'fake' last name, and that's how I came up with Tommy End.
I'm covered in tattoos head to toe, I have this striking style, I'm smaller than most competitors, and people are like, 'Yeah. That's my guy.' Why? Because they can see part of themselves in me.
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 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.