In an interview with the Hawkcast (via Fightful), Big E spoke about his run as WWE champion and how he fought to stay true to himself during that time. He noted that he was told he would have to change but didn’t.
He said: “I always wanted to be a one of one and no one could put all the elements of what I do together. That was always my goal at least, whether I succeeded or failed, I just wanted to carve my own lane and that’s what I’m proud of, because so often, especially when I won the WWE Championship and I was on my singles run, I got a lot of feedback like, ‘You can’t do this, you can’t look like that, you can’t cut promos like this. You’re gonna really have to change.’ But no, I fought to be myself and that to me as a performer was something that’s important for me is to be able to trust my own instincts, to go out there and sink or swim on my own. I know I’m not always going to get it right. But just this belief that I wanna do things my way, because I can sleep at night. If I fail or if I sink doing it my way, I’m okay with that. But if I sink doing it your way, that, I’m not cool with that.“
