By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast with Maven
Host: JP John Poz
Twitter: @TwoManPowerTrip
Website: www.tmptempire.com
Interview available at Tmptow.podomatic.com
On winning Tough Enough: “I don’t know if shocked is the right word. I want to say scared. Scared for the fact that I knew at that moment right then my life was never going to be the same. You have times in your life. We all where we know after this day life is not going to be what it once was. That’s what it was when they called my name with Tough Enough, I knew I’ll never have this life that I had pre-Tough Enough ever again. Whether that’s a good ride or a bad ride, it still remained to be seen at the time, but it will just never be the same. I remember the Hardys came in, and they said one thing that was the honest to God truth. They said ‘Right now, if wrestling is your career, if you choose this and this is what you do for the next 20 or 30 years of your life, how you feel right now is the best you’ll ever feel again the rest of your life’. And I don’t think my 24-year-old brain wrapped around it. I was like, I feel great. I’m in aches and pains, but nothing I can’t get over. But they were right. That’s the best I’ve ever felt since then and then it’s just constant. You’re going to be hurting all the time, and what I’m proudest of is through Tough Enough, I never took off one day. I never took off one exercise. I never sat out one drill due to injury.”
On eliminating Undertaker from the 2002 Royal Rumble: “(Undertaker) Gave me my career. Would I have had the run? Would I have had the career that I had without him? Absolutely not. The guy knew how to do business. If you walk into that locker room in 2002, 2001, two people, two people that immediately intimidate you, that’s Vince McMahon and the Undertaker. Other guys, they’re intimidating. They’re big. They got The Rock, the coolest guy on television. But Undertaker is just like, he’s walking around, and it’s almost like literally like a god, and then Taker, the fact that he was able to, because he didn’t have to do what he did, but the fact that he had the foresight to put me over by letting me eliminate him, that just gave me a career. What happens to me? I could have very well been lost in HWA or in OVW in the developmental for years, with him I wasn’t. I immediately had clout. I immediately had a little bit of ‘this guy is meant to be here’, and he did that all on his own with doing what he did for me. […] I eliminated him. He sells, gets up, turns and looks at me, and then the camera pans back on my face in the ring after I did my jumping celebration, and then you see fear on my face. Most people are like, that’s some great acting there. I wasn’t acting. I was legitimately terrified at that moment. Like, legitimately, because I was shoot terrified.”
On the late Andrew “Test” Martin: WrestleMania 18, I took Test, I took his spot in WrestleMania 18 to wrestle Goldust, where I was the hardcore champion and I got so much heat with him. Well, Test, prior to his passing, and God rest his soul, I miss him daily, he became one of my best friends, and he passed in 2008. But when I moved down to Florida, I hung out with him as soon as I moved down there because I didn’t know anybody. And we were going out to eat one night, and he was like, in his voice. He was like, ‘I hated you for a while, bro.’ He’s like, ‘But you turned out to be pretty damn cool.’ And it’s just like, anything, you have to just prove yourself to people.”
On his regrets in the business: “My main regret, I would say, I was a kid. I was in my 20s. And I remember that Johnny Ace used to tell me all the time, ‘Get out, get in the ring, work with Fit [Finlay] before the show’. And you’d have all these guys and girls in there just working on their craft. And I did it at the very beginning, and then, I don’t know if it was, it wasn’t laziness. I guess I just believed I got it. I know what I’m doing. There would be guys that would be down there just literally working on their craft. And that never was me. And if I could go back and tell young me, it would be that, get your ass there. Go to catering, get your food. I would go down there and I would work on my match with whoever agent I had or whoever I was working with. And once we had the match done, I’d go to the gym or whatever. And that’s my regret.”
Other topics include Vince McMahon, the WWE, Triple H, Al Snow, Tough Enough, backstage heat, The Undertaker, Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, and more.
You can listen to other shows apart of the TMPT Empire including Shane Douglas’ Triple Threat Podcast, Taking You to School with Dr. Tom Prichard, Talking Tough with Rick Bassman, Taskmaster Talks with Kevin Sullivan, Pro Wrestling 101 with Justin Credible and the University of Dutch with Dutch Mantell.
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