By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
Insight With Chris Van Vliet with guest Chris Masters
Host: Chris Van Vliet
Podcast available via Podcasts.Apple.com
I don’t think it’s talked about enough that you were only 22 when you made your WWE debut, looking as jacked as you did. I think because you had that much muscle, people assumed [you were older]: “I was 21. I know that because I was turning 22 when I worked the Elimination Chamber. That’s how that always stands out to me. So I definitely didn’t look my age. I think most of the guys didn’t even treat me like I was my age because of that. I was a kid. It was me, Muhammad Hassan, and Renee Dupree, just a few young guys amongst a locker room of men that most of us kind of grew up watching. So yeah, I just think most of them just kind of treated me like I was a grown man, when really, I was a kid. If you think, because when I do seminars, or even just indies, I’ll see guys who were right around that age, and they still look like kids. So I’m like, well, that was me. I was that age too. I just looked older. It doesn’t mean I was necessarily more mature or had any kind of wisdom or anything like that at that point.”
Do you feel like you were ever close at any point in time in WWE to winning a championship? “There was a point. I mean, Carlito and me were supposed to win them at that WrestleMania, but it literally got switched like the day before. We were penciled in to win it. But then Carlito, they wanted him to turn baby, and The Spirit Squad, they kind of wanted to get the belts on them somehow, to give them some steam, so that was that. Then the Intercontinental Title. I was actually supposed to win that, but it was the same point where they had given me an intervention for my prescription painkiller abuse at the time. They even told me, I remember having the meeting with Johnny [Ace], and because there was a four-way match that night, it was in Vegas for the Intercontinental Title that I was slated to win. But then they caught wind of the issues I had, and I had an intervention, and basically told me you’re going to rehab. I screwed that. So, tag belts, I had no control over that, just happened. IC, I F’d up. There was a point there, because you can even watch back to those old Raws where Vince [McMahon] was playing with the idea of making me the youngest champion. But, you know, he was feeling out a lot of guys at that point. I’m pretty sure [John] Cena gave me probably the thumbs down at some point.”
Didn’t Cena give you the very first STFU? “Yes, and it was a shoot STFU. I mean, again, I’m not saying that Cena was purposely doing it to shoot on me. I used to think sometimes with Cena, he got so fired up in the moment that he wouldn’t even know his own strength, type of thing. So, yeah, he did it to me for a shoot. You’ll see my face starts turning red, I start trying to get it a little bit looser. I’m pretty sure that I heard later on that he was working with Kurt, and Kurt had to tell him to loosen it up a little bit. But Kurt with his neck issues and stuff. But my Master Lock could be kind of brutal sometimes with guys, because I didn’t really know how to work it either. So sometimes when I look back at those videos, and I look at me putting on Kurt, I’m kind of like, oh man, I was probably rougher with him than I needed to be. Because when you’re that green, you don’t know how to shake spirit as much. You do stuff a little more real than you have to.
“I can remember, actually, there was a time with Shane Helms, we were working at a live event, and I Master Locked him, I guess, way too hard. So I released the Master Lock, they rang the bell, the match is over, and he gets up, and I think he tells me to F off, and just walks off. I’m not even saying it to heel on him, I was too stiff, I didn’t know how to work it, and it became a big drama with everybody, because then it was like, you know, he no-sold the hold, I’m obviously doing it too rough, and I know that too. Because with Shelton [Benjamin], one time, he was telling me, I was about to pass out. I mean, if it’s too tight, some of the guys were so broad here that it’d be so tight that it would be tough, because you start twerking their neck from the start. [It’s a legit hold] You’ll pass out, cuts off the blood flow, and you’ll go out.”
Who is it the hardest to put the Master Lock on? “Probably, Bobby [Lashley]. Just look at his build. I mean, I say that just because I remember just holding that thing for a long time on anybody can be kind of tough. I’m saying not for 20 seconds, but like with Bobby, it was hard, you know, because by the time I got it around his neck, it was probably not even fully locked in, just because he was so kind of broad up here.”
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