Tyson Kidd Gets Candid About Transitioning To WWE Producer After Career-Ending Injury

Former WWE star and current producer TJ Wilson, FKA Tyson Kidd, has opened up about how his injury affected him and his initial reaction to it.

Wilson recently spoke to "Developmentally Speaking" about his career-ending injury and if he knew what he wanted to do after learning about it.

"I love wrestling. It's given me everything — everything I got [is because of] wrestling. No, I had no clue what I was going to do," he recalled. "The surgeon comes in the morning to kind of give me the news. But I'm very in tune with my body, and in that moment, I knew. I knew my neck was broken. I knew I was never wrestling again. I knew that. In that moment, I did not know what was next. I had no clue. I didn't know anything. I just knew that this dream that I'd seen through — this version of it — was over. I didn't know what was next."

Before his injury, Wilson had plans to sign a five-year deal with WWE, following which he wanted to retire and establish a wrestling school. But, he feels that he would've had a few dream opponents that he would've wanted to face, one of whom was AJ Styles. For Wilson, the injury caused him to get bitter with the thing he loved the most: wrestling.

"I probably got bitter with wrestling a little bit ... or maybe it just was really hard for me to watch because it had been taken away so abruptly. One minute I'm fine, and the next [I'm] done," he said.

TJ Wilson revealed that his first experience of being a producer came in 2009, just a few months after his WWE main roster debut, when Chris Jericho asked him to produce a match he was involved in, and credits him for making him a producer. Following his injury, he was apprehensive about taking up the role, but Vince McMahon promised him that there would be other opportunities if the producer role didn't work out for him.

"Five months on the main roster, he's [Jericho] asking me to produce a match of his. So he invented TJ, the producer," he said. "Now kind of came the time where Vince said, 'Let's try you out as a producer.' He said, 'If it doesn't work, there are many avenues here. If this doesn't work, we'll find something else.' In my mind, I didn't think it was going to work. I thought it would work to a degree. What I thought, honestly, was that I was going to kind of be – I kind of thought eventually it might morph into me being a producer, but kind of like –  I shouldn't say checks and balances – but almost like a talent relations–ish role, where I just kind of make sure, just due to my injury, just make sure everybody's, like, prepared and okay before a match."

Wilson stated that he thoroughly enjoys being a producer and claimed that he has had more "fulfilling moments" in that role than he did during his time in the ring.

Later on the podcast, the former Tyson Kidd admitted that some moments he has experienced as a producer have been life-altering, expressing that the role has been even better than he had envisioned. He went on to list a few matches that he has produced in WWE that he recalls fondly and is proud to have been involved in.

"I'm not really the producer on it, but like Natty and Becky, I helped them with a couple things. They had a submission match at SummerSlam in Toronto, I think. The match was incredible. I didn't produce it; I only gave them a couple of little ideas. They did an awesome job," he said. "Sasha and Bianca at WrestleMania — I'm very proud of. Bianca and Becky the next year at WrestleMania — I'm extremely proud of. Bayley and IYO, I thought was, like [great] ... I have a lot, man. A lot of Carmella stuff, like, we worked really well."

He added that Carmella was the first wrestler to ask him to help produce her matches, which hadn't happened previously, as he was randomly assigned matches. Another match that he was proud to have been involved in was the tag team match involving the team of Bayley and Sasha Banks against Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler, where Bayley turned heel on Banks. 

Kidd also praised Seth Rollins for helping him love wrestling again after his injury, with Rollins feeling that he too benefitted from Kidd producing his matches.