Tyson Dux on His Planned AEW Appearance, Shawn Spears

For years, Canadian wrestling fans have wanted to see Tyson Dux earn a spot in one of the world’s biggest wrestling promotions. While he’s frankly earned the opportunity many times over by this point, the former Cruiserweight Classic competitor has yet to take on a full-time role with one of the major companies.

However, as Dux revealed to me in our conversation late last year, there were plans for him to make his All Elite Wrestling debut prior to the onset of the COVID pandemic.

“I’ve always wanted to wrestle out west, and I finally had the chance to just as this COVID went down,” Dux mentioned in the midst of our conversation. “I was supposed to be in Europe, come home from Europe, go to AEW, from AEW go over to Vancouver, from Vancouver, go to Newfoundland, and it was just bouncing back and forth.

But, you know, we’re just gonna have to wait and see.”

Of course, my ears perked up at the mention of All Elite Wrestling. Personally, having heard nothing previously of one of my favourite wrestlers appearing on one of wrestling’s biggest stages, I had to inquire on the point.

“It was supposed to be a thing with [Shawn] Spears when Spears was having people come out and doing tags with him,” Dux replied. “It’s, of course, switched since then, but they wanted me to come down and tag with him, be his partner and run that kind of angle.”

“That’s all gone now but we’ll see what happens. We’ll see him down the line.”

While it was the first time that Spears had been mentioned in our conversation, Dux has been consistent in stating that the Niagara Falls native is his favourite opponent that he’s ever worked with. While no one doubts Spears’ talent, Dux has had the opportunity to wrestle a literal who’s-who of professional wrestling, and I was curious as to what made Spears stand out.

“With Spears, it’s one thing, and this is the hardest thing in professional wrestling to learn,” began Dux. “It’s only when you start in this business that you really get a sense of it, but it’s timing. Shawn is a good, big guy, attractive, athletic, all this stuff, but what sets him apart (more) than anybody else is his sense of timing is perfect.

He knows when to sell, when to fire up, when to go back to the sell, when to change gears, all this stuff where I don’t have to tell him. I don’t have to plan anything, we can just go out there and do it. He’s just got a real natural gift for timing.”

“A lot of guys, I have to pull along” the Canadian icon continued. “Like I either (say) like ‘slow down,’ or I was like ‘pick it up,’ you know what I mean? I never, I have never had to give him one of those calls ever. Like, none of those cues. Whereas like guys on – usually, guys that think they know what they’re doing in this business, you know how it is, they go a long time, but all it is is they just know how to do wrestling moves. They don’t know when to put the wrestling moves and why they’re putting the wrestling moves.”

“Shawn knows how.”

Please credit Spencer Love/Love Wrestling with any of the above quotes used.