Viktor On How The Ascension’s Contracts Changed On WWE Main Roster, Jon Moxley Inspiring His New Ring Name

In a recent interview on The Wrestling Inc. Daily, Viktor discussed how The Ascension’s contracts changed on the WWE main roster, how Jon Moxley inspired his new ring name, and much more. Here are some highlights:

Viktor on how The Ascension’s contracts changed after being called up from NXT to the WWE main roster: “I made so much more money that first year. It was great. So a lot of people back then used to get to double dip. You wouldn’t sign a new contract yet, but you would get a month or two on the road usually where your hotels and cars were taken care of, and you would get paid per show that you were doing or whatever. But then you’d still make whatever you were making in NXT. That was still your contract, and so for most guys, it was pretty sweet when you go because you’re like, cool, I really don’t have to pay for anything, and I’m just making extra money from being on the road. It was kind of how everything worked for me and Konnor. The minute we got up, that stopped. Immediately, we came up that week, and here’s a new contract. Everything switches.

“You have to pay for everything yourselves, and the thing was we kind of said, ‘Hey, don’t most guys usually get taken care of for a little while,’ and they’re like, ‘Oh, okay. Well, yeah, I guess since you’re not used to the road yet.’ I think they got our cars and hotels for about a month, and by the end of that, we’re like, ‘I don’t want their hotels anymore.’ I know everything gets switched. Everybody that kind of came up after us all had kind of the immediate switch, and oddly enough, I think when we signed our new contract, when we first came up, it was almost exactly five years to the date that I had signed with NXT.”

On how Jon Moxley inspired “The Spacelord” part of his new ring name: “I am a comic book fan, but actually, it was Moxley that said it one day when we were training at Hard Knocks. The song came on, and he just like looked at me. And he was like, ‘I see you getting up in the morning just having that song playing. You walk out in your living room and just light a cigarette and start making eggs, and you probably kick some girls out of your apartment or whatever,’ and I started laughing.

“And I was like, ‘Well, you’re right about the cigarette and eggs and definitely not kicking the girls out of my apartment at that time.’ It just kind of stuck. Everybody just kind of laughed and it just always stuck. All the guys that were around just kept calling me that. It’s one of those things that’s more or less true. I don’t know if I’m a lord of space, but I spend a lot of time out there.”