By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Insight With Chris Van Vliet with guest EC3
Host: Chris Van Vliet
Podcast available via Podcasts.Apple.com
On keeping in touch with Dixie Carter: “Yeah, I text her once a month. We have a little exchange. It was pulling teeth to get her on that OVW guest spot we did. Al Snow and I were helping her produce it because she was filming it at home. And like it was just like old times micro-managing and analyzing things that don’t matter. Like all you have to do is just show up and say hi and just have fun with it. She said I don’t know if this is the right tone. I said, just have fun, that’s what this shit is supposed to be. And I think that’s what she never really got to experience because she jumps into the business in the deep end to like, you know, the competitive, shark-filled waters of the professional wrestling world where a lot of people are utilizing her and probably manipulating her and trying to get money and this and that. I don’t know if she ever just got to have fun. She got to have that fun and that this is the reason we do this.”
On the Dean Ambrose rivalry: “I didn’t have any [momentum]. I think it was a weird spot because Dean has been on top. Shield, awesome, loved, adored, whether they’re protagonists or antagonists, they’re ingrained in the culture. Also, at the same time, he’s publicly announcing I’m bucking the system. I’m out of here. I love the dude, but when you have the freedom, it doesn’t matter what I do. Like he did like that promo and it was great because he’s just feeling it. Usually when you don’t give a shit, sometimes it’s when your work is the best. [It was scripted that] Every time I’m going to speak, I get cut off. So does that kill the momentum? A bit, unless we delivered something in the back end. So the match, we had a decent little match. It’s a TV match. And I think I won like with a roll-up, as opposed to I don’t know, should I have just beat the dog shit out of him? Or what would have made me keep the momentum but then the momentum was killed the next week anyway, so didn’t matter.
“I think partly the reason that was killed is because we were working the live events together. So Dean and I, we would have these really good live event matches, eight minutes, like third on the card, they’re solid little things. Right place right time. He’s the antagonist, I’m the protagonist, but he’s getting cheered, and I’m getting booed. So in the middle of that match, I’m like, this is exactly where I want to be. If I can garner the sort of push of I’m a baby face, but people generally don’t like me, that’s Roman, Cena level, I can get to that, that’s where I need to be because I’m a sh*t baby face. So we’re working these matches, and I’m working babyface and my comebacks are getting booed, he’s getting cheered. And like, I’d slip over and slip over and slip over. On the last night, because we’re really good professional wrestlers and tired of always doing the same thing. We’re in the middle of the match and they’re really anti-me and they’re really for him. I think he has me in a hold. He’s like, you wanna switch it up? Well, yeah.
“So in the middle of the match, I take over and now I’m playing kind of the bad guy, and I’m, you know, beating the sh*t out of him. And now he’s fired up, and he’s making a comeback. And the same finish, whatever, but we went about it a different way. Apparently, that got back to the office, to Vince perhaps, I don’t know for sure. But when you buck the system, you’re spitting in his face sometimes, it’s like a power play. So the next day on TV momentum is cut and then it’s just nothing after that.”
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