By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast with Big Kon
Host: JP John Poz
Twitter: @TwoManPowerTrip
Website: www.tmptempire.com
Interview available at Tmptow.podomatic.com
On meeting with Road Warrior Animal, Demolition and The Powers of Pain: “They know that was who we were and then, you know, the comparison, it was a tough pill to swallow because we specifically never wanted to be compared to anybody, you know? And I — and Vik [Viktor], I don’t know if he talked to you about this or not, but we had the opportunity to speak with [Road Warrior] Animal, in person together and we talked to him and kind of explained that we were sorry, that we hoped that there was no ill will towards us because of that and he understood and I think the best part about that was talking to him man-to-man, face-to-face about it and that was really important to us and then of course we talked to Demolition and I talked to Powers of Pain because I know The Warlord pretty well and so we felt like we had to do that out of the respect to those men, because those are men that paved the way, that allowed us to feed our families and that was very important to us… But yeah, that was one of the things that we took upon ourselves to do once we were done [in WWE] was that we were like, ‘We’ve got to talk to these men if we can and clear the air, at least just to make sure,’ and they probably didn’t give a damn to be honest with you, but it was the right thing to do, at least from a man’s perspective. The way I look at it, that was the right thing to do.”
On working with Dusty Rhodes in FCW: “He was amazing. Absolutely love him. Everything I do, when I think about him, I have taken everything he’s taught us, in my mind, that I love to give in promo classes or when I talk to kids about character development now. He was a huge inspiration on the success that we had in the first Black and Gold NXT. Him and Hunter [Paul Levesque] and, of course, Bill DeMott. They had a huge part of our success and why we did so well. Always be grateful. Always.”
Legion of doom comparisons: When this comparison started, this is right at the end of our NXT run, I believe, before we’re about to get called up to the main roster. And I remember Dream telling us, it’s very important that you guys explain to yourselves that there can only be one LOD, there can only be one Demolition, there can only be one Powers of Pain, and there can only be one Ascension. It’s very important that you guys talk about that, because you don’t ever want to emulate another team you really don’t like. You want to be your own person or your own team. And when going back, you look at the NXT version, you could see we were doing our own thing. You could see that’s who we were. That’s why people bought into it.”
On The Ascension working in NXT but not on the WWE main roster: “What I will say is that we knew what we had to go up as. We saw the layout. The creative department came up with this whole concept of the look and everything like that and it was like this is it, we’re getting out of here. I can’t believe it. I got cobwebs on my locker right now and I’m ready to go. For a while, you’re like, did they forget about us? If everybody says this is the way it’s going to go, and then sometimes you’re going to hit some bumps and speed bumps, sometimes you’ll hit a wall, you know, but you just got to keep on going.”
Whether his WWE release a surprise: “No. And anybody that says they are, you kind of have a tendency to know you got a feeling. It doesn’t just come out of nowhere when you get released. I want to say, for a while there, we weren’t even on the road, but they were still paying us, which they didn’t have to do. That’s another thing, they didn’t have to do that. And then it was about nine months later, ten months later, they were like, okay, guys, listen, we basically got nothing for you. Listen, you’re prepared. Listen, is it going to happen or isn’t it going to happen? Because at this point, we’re just kind of like, hey, are you going to fire us or are you going to put us on the road? Just let us know. We’re ready to do either or at this point. For the most part, most people that get let go, there’s a general feeling that they know something’s up.”
Other topics include training with Rusty Brooks, WWE run, NXT run, winning the NXT Tag Team titles, Viktor of the Ascension, and more. H/T Partial transcription to Andrew Thompson/POST.
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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