By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling Podcast with Matt Morgan
Host: JP John Poz
Twitter: @TwoManPowerTrip
Website: www.tmptempire.com
Interview available at Tmptow.podomatic.com
On his 2014 return to WWE: “This was at a time where Hunter (Paul Levesque) really didn’t want anything to do with TNA wrestlers. So when I asked for my release from TNA, I did one last match where I was supposed to lose to Sting and do the good business and then leave. I already had put feelers out there as soon as I left about wanting to come back. I was originally told when I was released from WWE way back in, I don’t even know when that was, 2006, 2005, something like that, to go out there and get main event experience. Long story short, I got that main event experience.
“I headlined seven pay-per-views with TNA while I was there, and so it was time to go back to WWE. And so I put the feelers out there to agent friends of mine that were there. And at first it was given some time because Hunter really doesn’t wanna work with anybody that’s coming from TNA. This was legit at the time, and I understood why. I don’t know how many months later, not too long after that, it was we wanna bring you back, um, we think the right spot would be at the Royal Rumble where they’d like to have surprise entrants. That’d be pretty cool to bring you back that way. Are you cool with that? I was like, hell yeah, I’m cool with that. And they’re like, yep, you’re gonna be able to do your Blueprint moniker, everything, basically, a lot of what I did on TNA I’d be able to do there is the way it was explained to me.”
On the Blueprint and stuttering gimmicks: ”Vince McMahon pitched a stuttering character to me after my second time being sent back down and being called back up to Smackdown after doing the Team Lesnar angle and all that other stuff as a rookie.. I remember telling him, I was like, you know, Mr. McMahon, with all due respect, I’ll do whatever you tell me to do and I’ll do it better than anybody. However, I was just on your television six months ago with Team Lesnar and I did talk. How am I not talking now, what are we gonna say? How are we gonna explain it? I overanalyze it, like I overanalyze everything else and anybody that knows me from wrestling knows I overanalyze the bejesus out of things. I did pitch that to Vince a long, long time ago of what the Blueprint could be. He’s the giant 2.0. You know, and I pitch it to him like, man, we’ve got Kevin Garnett, seven foot two bringing the ball up the floor now in the NBA. Dirk Nowitzki shooting from half court, damn near seven feet. Randy Johnson damn near seven feet throwing gas from the pitching mound in Major League baseball. All the sports big men are evolving. Why aren’t pro wrestler big men evolving? You know, let me be that giant 2.0.”
On not winning TNA Title: ”I remember being let down by that, obviously, and I would talk to, at the time, I think Vince, I think Russo was our writer at the time, but him or Matt Conway, one of the two. And I’d be like, hey, is this ever gonna happen, because if it’s not, you know, what are we doing here? Because if we keep telling these six month stories of me versus the Main Event Mafia, for instance, which, to Vince’s credit, that was a good storyline. I had to go through every member of the Main Event Mafia, one by one. In this crescendo, they were building with me this storyline of me versus Kurt Angle; wrestling’s present versus wrestling’s future is what they’ve called it. And they had me lose to Kurt. And all day Kurt was on his bike constantly, you know, with Vince and Matt Conway going, what do we do? Why would we build him this far just to get him here to lose? This makes no sense. I’ll always thank Kurt for that. Kurt will lose to everybody if you let him.”
Other topics include breaking into the business, getting into OVW, WWF, Vince McMahon, stuttering gimmick, WWE, Brock Lesnar, Tough Enough, TNA, Vince Russo, Kurt Angle, and more.
Be the first to comment