By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Insight With Chris Van Vliet with guest Natalya
Host: Chris Van Vliet
Podcast available via Podcasts.Apple.com
On not considering retirement: “I just feel so good. That’s the crazy thing is that, like people always say oh, when are you gonna wrap it up? When is it gonna be done? It’s like, Listen, this is Hotel California. You can check out anytime you want, but you can never leave. Once you do this, like I’m a wrestler through and through like it’ll never ever, ever, ever, ever leave me ever. It’s a community. It’s a family. It’s a lifestyle. It’s a way of life and it doesn’t mean that I’ll be competing forever but it’s like, you know, when I saw Rey Mysterio, I was watching him in a match. I was live at a show and I went into the crowd and like put a hat on and watched him you know, I was incognito and I watched Rey perform live, it was in Mexico and he was wrestling Roman Reigns. And I was just like Rey is almost 50 and he is doing the best work of his career. He’s so inspiring, his gear, his look his energy, his vibe, his ability to move around to make people feel something and granted he was in there with one of the greatest of all time Roman, but Rey is one of the greatest of all time. He just inspires me so much and like I’m you know, I’m not close to being done when I look at like what Rey’s doing. I’m like Rey inspires me to want to do so much more and to also help people you know, because you look at who Rey’s worked with and how much he’s helped people even with Santos right now you know. I look up to so much as Rey, what he’s done.”
On why TJ Wilson is unable to wrestle again: “He can’t do anything that would require him to take a bump. So he can show little techniques, and TJ is like a wrestling savant. I think in the same way that Daniel Bryan did. He sees the industry in wrestling and everything, like he could ask him about a finish from a Bret Hart match that’s very obscure, he’ll be able to tell you, he could tell you any single girl’s move set. He could, if you if you said, TJ, when did I have that match, who was it against what arena what town? He’s like that with moves too. He just knows how to dissect it and pick it apart. He was working with Nia Jax on something and he was just helping her figure out exactly how to do it so that it was just perfect technique. And I was like, I didn’t even know TJ ever knew about that move.
“And he’s just so gifted, and he’s so good, but he just can’t bump. And that’s the thing when you have an injury, like what TJ had, where it’s a C1 injury, and not everybody’s familiar with what a C1 injury is. But it is where TJ broke his neck was at the base of his brain. So it’s where like the brain and the spinal cord meet. So it’s a very, very vulnerable area. And the actual medical term for that injury is called The Hangman fracture. So when people say, Oh, TJ, you know, we want to see you get back in the ring. And they see that he is very healthy, and he is in very great shape. Because he had a C1 injury with a C1 C2 fusion, he just can’t take a bump. And he has to be very careful. So he can’t ever come back to wrestling. I mean, he can do stuff, you know, he can do stuff, but he can’t take a bump. It would be really dangerous.”
On pitching for Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart and Bret Hart to go into the WWE Hall of Fame together: “He [Bret Hart] made my dad, he helped my dad so much. When I look at it, Bret always says, you know, Jim helped me come out of my shell and Jim helped me find my personality. But when my dad and Bret were going into the Hall of Fame. It’s funny because I was very, very, very adamant. At one point it was approached, you know, it was, I was basically presented with the idea of my dad going in by himself. And I said, you know, I want my dad to go in with [Bret], I want my dad and Bret in there together as the Hart Foundation because that was my dad’s favorite time in his career. That’s when he had the most fun. That’s when he was the most alive. That’s when he just did his best work. And Bret just looked out for him so much. And they were just so close and such a well-oiled machine. And so as much as like, in that moment, Vince [McMahon] was like, we can put your dad in by himself. I was like, I want my dad and Bret together. I want them together because my dad would have wanted that. You know, and so that was really cool to be able to do that for my dad. It was something that he really I know he would have been so excited to be part of the Hall of Fame.”
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