‘Lucha Underground’ is like a combination of Lucha Libre, American Pro Wrestling, and gridy action films. It’s got a lot of things I like – action, wrestling, and really good storytelling.
There’s no secret I love professional wrestling. It’s not just the money all the time, I love wrestling, and I love fighting.
There are a lot of similarities between dancing and wrestling. The costumes are the same, the spandex and all that, but you have to be light on your feet to do both, and you have to remember choreography.
My father, my grandfather, the wrestling business, the WWE in particular, has really given me everything. A lot of happiness, my kids are taken care of, my wife is happy, they get to travel. A lot of pluses come with it; the Hall Of Fame would just be the cherry on top.
I have an open door with WWE as far as wrestling goes.
It took me a few years to explain to my colleagues and my mentors and the people that I looked up to and I wrestled that I’m not in wrestling anymore. I’m in sports entertainment. Pro’ wrestling doesn’t mean that we’re saying we’re a step up above amateur wrestling, because there’s nothing above Olympic wrestling.
To be honest, I was not very good in studies; I was an average student. I used to work hard, whether it was for wrestling or studies, as I considered myself not that talented. I used to mug up everything during exams.
If I had to explain what WrestleMania was to someone who’s never seen wrestling, never seen WWE, never heard of the concept of WrestleMania, I would show them a five second video clip of The Rock and Hulk Hogan standing motionless in the ring while 70,000 people are jumping up and down.
I use every kind of emotion in my wrestling, so that’s why people call me the ‘King of Strong Style.’
I’ll be honest, when I first started pro wrestling, everybody else did clotheslines better than me. They did everything about pro wrestling better than me. But when it comes to fighting, getting nitty and gritty, I’m the man.
To have the canvas of something like an Impact Wrestling, something that had TV and be able to be a creative input guy and come up with stuff, I would love to, and I would be up for that challenge.
I should think wrestling is the most positive thing in the world. The fact is, behind the scenes, there’s stuff that goes on that’s bush-league. It’s laughable.
I always said to myself when I first started wrestling that I was gonna put absolutely everything into it – into becoming the absolute best pro wrestling that I could be.
My dad was always a great talker on the microphone, so I tried to learn a lot from him in that way, and he’s very old-school. He built the wrestling family that we have.
Nothing’s scarier than wrestling The Boogeyman.
Since the day I was born, wrestling has sustained me and my family. It’s the way my father fed me; it’s the way I feed my kids. More importantly, wrestling is my greatest release. It’s been such a blessing for me. I can step into the ring and let it all go – all my anger, all my frustration, all my pain.
Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators.
It is not easy to go away and come back. One year out of MMA is like five years out of MMA. When you leave and go do something else, like pro wrestling, you’re so far behind the times.
When something special happens in wrestling, it’s that much more special to me and for me to go, ‘That was awesome,’ because I’m as bitter as there is, so if you can get me to go, ‘Woah, that was cool,’ a couple of times, it’s a special show.
I would say at leaner times in the women’s division, I feel like there were certain girls who tried to keep the torch going for women’s wrestling. If I was one of those women then I feel like I did my job.
The cutthroat part of it is that professional wrestling has no union. There are a number of people that are taken advantage of on a daily basis.
This was something I always dreamed and wanted to be part of, when women’s wrestling was freakin’ cool, and now it is.
Even though I wrestled Ric Flair very early on in my career, it was a short match, so getting to wrestle him later on in my career was a benchmark. Wrestling Hulk Hogan was a benchmark for me.
I’ve always wanted to entertain people, and when I was in school, I was interested in creative writing, but wrestling was always there. When I ran into financial problems, I just figured when life gives you lemons, you have to make lemonade.
I owe my start in professional wrestling to the red-headed kid from ‘The Partridge Family.’ I was discovered by Hulk Hogan, Jimmy Hart, and Ric Flair in Chicago when I was introduced to those three gentlemen by Danny Bonaduce.
Wrestling just comes naturally to me. It wasn’t like there was this moment where I said, ‘This is what I’m going to do.’ It’s just what I did. It was my life.
I think there are several things that people don’t get about wrestling, and one of the things is that we are entertainment.
Bret Hart was a nobody from Canada, and Hogan was the greatest star in wrestling.
If I want to be called ‘The Rock,’ I’ll be called ‘The Rock.’ If I want to go back to wrestling, I’ll go back to wrestling.
One of the fun things about wrestling is that you can do a move and leave your stamp on the business forever.
The combination of old and new is what every wrestling organization should be like. That way, you have a chance to match up the legends in dream main events.
I love professional wrestling, and I love sports entertainment.
My original perception of wrestling was not a very positive one. I didn’t understand it at all, and I thought it was kind of silly and ridiculous. But as I got to know it, it was sort of like how people used to talk about musicals, to me, when I was younger.
What makes that turnstile turn? That’s what made wrestling what it has become. The fans dictate the direction of the wrestling industry.
My whole life, I’ve been training for something, whether it be baseball or football or wrestling or martial arts.
I always wanted to become a good role model for kids as a professional football player. Unfortunately, I didn’t attain that through football, but I was smart enough to realize that professional wrestling provided another opportunity for that.
Several witnesses describe seeing an altercation in the car between Mr. Brown and Officer Wilson. It was described as wrestling, tug-of-war. Several other witnesses described Mr. Brown as punching Officer Wilson while Mr. Brown was partially inside the vehicle.
I guess you could say I fell into it. The main goal was to be successful and to make my family proud. Back then, MMA was just getting started, and there didn’t seem to be a ton of rules. It seemed pretty brutal, and I was still pretty focused on wrestling. But I decided to give it a shot.
It is due to wrestling that people now know and recognise me.
I’m built for wrestling. I have a high pain tolerance. My nose has been broken a couple times. Black eyes.
AJ Styles is of a different genre, and he’s a wonderful part of wrestling, doing things that a lot of guys can’t do.
When I was wrestling, I was 19, I was young.
I spent a lot of time over in England wrestling at Butlins holiday camps for Brian Dixon and All Star Wrestling.
As good as I was at wrestling, I never thought I was any good.
I’m not wrestling anymore. I’m out of that part of my career.
I would have to say that Canada definitely produces the best wrestlers; I don’t know why. I think Canada is a big wrestling country, and there are a lot of guys who are interested in wrestling in Canada.
My dad is the reason I actually started watching wrestling. My dad was never big into sports; we were all big into sports as kids, and he’d go to our Little League games or whatever and not really know what was going on, because he didn’t know about sports, but he knew about wrestling.
I will say this about the Miz: Even though I don’t like his wrestling style, he is a very hard worker. I have a huge amount of respect for him, and I want him to do well.
I often run into wrestlers at comic conventions or wrestling events, and it could be Tito Santana or Demolition, and I’m just flooded with memories. It’s always nice to see one of your old mates, especially the ones who I knew from further back.
I’m in the game of spinning plates. I’m spinning a boxing plate. I’m spinning a Tae Kwon Do plate. I’m spinning a Jujitsu plate. I’m spinning a freestyle wrestling plate. I’m spinning a karate plate. If I was to put all them down and have one boxing plate spinning, it would be like a load off my shoulders.
The dojo system in Japan is something very unique. It prepared me not only for wrestling in the States and around the world, but it also prepared me for how to handle myself as an adult in the real world.
I sort of approach wrestling the way Johnny Depp approaches movies. I don’t really care necessarily what I’m portraying.
Of course I’m happy with my time in professional wrestling. I met some great people, I met my wife, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Something happened in 1997 that changed the whole industry, at least for the next five, six, or seven years. It wasn’t about the 24-inch arms and the cartoon characters anymore. It was about the wrestling and what we were doing in the ring physically.
Every time I get catcalled, I fantasize about being able to do a wrestling move on someone.
