Shawn Spears Talks About His Creative Freedom At AEW, His Match At Double Or Nothing

Aubrey Edwards and Tony Schiavone had Shawn Spears on the AEW Unrestricted podcast where the three talked about Spears' current run in AEW and the TNT Championship landscape. Spears talked about his short match on Double or Nothing and the comedic spot where his bare essentials were almost shown.

"No, don't worry. I doubled up," Spears assured. "I had two layers because I've been around long enough to know that things can happen, and I'm not going to leave anything to chance on [a] pay-per-view. And obviously I got to keep in mind my audience and who's watching. It was mainly designed to be a comedy bit. It was a last-minute addition to the card, for one. I think I did a new segment trying to set it up on a Wednesday and the match happened on a Saturday, but I also sat back and if you look at the totality of that card, it was stacked from start to finish.

Spears continued, "When you got the Stampede match, and you got the TNT Championship final, and then you got the ladder match, you have so many different elements of professional wrestling on one card. How can you be different, or how can you at least fit into this card with the time allotted, which I believe was about five-to-seven minutes. This is one of those things where the beautiful thing about AEW is talent has freedom to go ahead go out and do what you want."

Spears revealed that he did not tell anyone that that moment was going to happen. Only the cameramen were made aware as to capture the moment where Spears's tights were taken down exposing his Tully Blanchard boxers.

"Now the boxers I didn't tell a lot of people about. I told our cameramen," Spears revealed. "I didn't even turn up the announcers. Tony, you know that. I didn't smarten up right anybody, and that includes a lot of the EVPs. They didn't know. Tony didn't know either. It was just something that I went out and did on PPV because in my mind, I was going to get people talking about me one way or the other. That's just one way of, in my opinion, trying to stand out, trying to have a memorable moment good or bad.

"Whether it's a swing and a hit or swing and a miss. one way or another, I want people talking about me along with this pay-per-view. So in retrospect, that might not have been the best way to go, or it might have been a very entertaining way to go. I felt if you can find me a better entertaining five-to-eight minutes, knock yourself out. Would have it been suited better for TV? Probably."

After Double or Nothing, Blanchard cut a promo criticizing Spears. Spears called it "one of the best promos that I have been a part of, or seen, in probably a couple of years."

"He didn't know either. I did not smart him up as well," Spears added. "Nobody knew, but to your point, we had a couple conversations afterwards because he hasn't been seen on TV, obviously, the whole pandemic and thing kind of shut down a lot of people, and he couldn't be seen for what eight weeks. So that's the first time people have seen him, and they see him in that capacity.

"He wasn't he wasn't too thrilled, and to your point Tony, I've watched it back on a few occasions, and it's probably one of the best promos that I have been a part of or seen in probably a couple of years. I got goosebumps kind of thinking about it now because this is Tully Blanchard. This is a Hall of Famer. This is one of the greatest of all time, and he still has it. I never questioned it for a second, but if you don't watch that and get motivated or fired up or if you don't feel something, then you don't have soul. But I got the message loud and clear, and I think you're right. I think we fell into something, or maybe it was a plan all along there, Schiavone. Not just a pretty face. I'm not just a pretty face."

Spears cleared the air on why he signed with AEW. He admitted that he is closer to the end of his career than starting fresh. He talked about the creative freedom that he has in AEW compared to the lack of creative freedom he had in WWE.

"You see a lot on social media. I'm used to it," Spears admitted. "I'm used to seeing both sides of the coin: good, bad or indifferent. But, a lot of people thought that I came into AEW to go right into the main event and right to the top of the mountain and get all the titles thrown on you and push, push, push, push. Not the case, exactly. I came over here to enjoy the remaining years of my career. I'm much more closer to the end of my career than I am at the beginning. I feel great. The schedule has allowed me to heal a lot of nagging injuries. I could last another three to five years in-ring with ease, comfortably.

"The other very luring thing was the creative freedom. I think anybody watching this will agree that over the course of a year, I've been able to speak a lot more, show personality a lot more. The Shawn Spears News for example was a great example, recently. But, I might not have received those opportunities anywhere else. I didn't receive those opportunities anywhere else.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit AEW Unrestricted with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.