On Being Trained By Bill Demott:
His pendulum swung both ways. There are times when I can tell you he was one of the coolest funnest guys I ever had the pleasure of hanging out with and there were times when he was one of the biggest most miserable fu*king pricks I ever had the misfortune of having been around. Just depended on what Bill you got that day. Sometimes he was awesome and sometimes he wasn’t and his training style was very demanding, brutal, sometimes, in my opinion, reckless. He would have us do sh*t where all four of us had to stand on the top turnbuckles while two people would hit the ropes criss-crossing and then we’d have to squat. I was like, ‘Is this fuc*ing wrestling training or ninja training?’ Bill would just do stupid sh*t to us sometimes to pop himself. He would make us circle the ring imitating animals and sh*t because it was funny. Fuc*, I ain’t doing that sh*t. ‘Banks isn’t a team player. He’s too good for this. He’s better than everybody else.’ That sh*t used to make me hot like, ‘Dude, what the fu*k are you trying to do here? How is this gonna make us better wrestlers?’ There was other times when he was serious – it’s politically incorrect, but we referred to it as Retard Saturdays, where Saturday you’re off. You don’t have to come in and train. You could do whatever the fu*k you wanted to, but if you wanted to come in, Bill would be there for a couple hours on Saturday morning, if you wanted to work on sh*t. If you wanted to get in the ring and work on some holds and needed to learn how to bump better or whatever the fu*k you needed help with. He wasn’t getting paid for that. That was just him on his time. For me, if I see Bill Demott right now, I’d shake his hand and speak with him, but there were times when sh*t between me and Bill wasn’t so pleasant, but then there were times when I’d give the guy a hug and say, ‘Hey man, you’re fu*king awesome.’
On Kenny Omega In WWE Developmental:
Regarding Omega, with the way the developmental system was at the time – the way Bill was running it and sadly Vince McMahon’s mentality at that time – I don’t think Kenny would have thrived in the WWE arena because I remember specifically hearing when Vince was like, ‘If he’s under six feet tall and 200 pounds I don’t want to see him.’ There was that time when no little guys were getting signed. He wanted big guys and six feet 200 pounds was the cut off.
On Working With Chris Benoit:
Benoit, because he was a friend and mentor from back in my indie days, he knew what I could do. With Benoit, all of a sudden people found out, ‘Oh sh*t MVP can really wrestle, like he can go.’ ‘Yeah dude, I can go.’ Our first WrestleMania match we were coming through the curtain and people were giving me high fives and congratulating me and Stephanie [McMahon] came over and she goes, ‘Wow that was amazing! Who knew you could do that?’ And Chris Benoit in typical deadpan Chris fashion just stepped in front of me and looked at her and said, ‘I did.’
On His WWE Costume:
I thought it was a rib. I thought it was a fu*king joke. My whole concept of MVP and I had a meeting with Vince, Johnny, and the seamstress…I pretty much laid it out, ‘If Deion Sanders was allowed to design his own uniform, what would it look like?’ So take this concept of Under Armour, who was a brand new company at the time, unheard of. Nike dry-fit was the leading close fitting athletic gear. I said, ‘Let’s take a Nike dry-fit top and jazz it up, like bring it out.’ So, it was like an artist drawing of what the outfit should look like and I’m like, ‘Yeah, that is perfect. Just bedazzle it.’ So the day of my debut, I walk by and see the outfit, the blue outfit with the upside down Star Trek triangle on it and I start laughing and I’m like, ‘This is definitely a practical joke. This is not what we discussed.’ She goes, ‘Do you like it?’ ‘Oh yeah, it’s great. It’s awesome. Thanks.’ At this point I’m thinking this is all a test. They’re just fuc*ing with me….this outfit, they’re just gonna see how I react. We get close to the showtime and Johnny Ace says, ‘Hey kid, did you see your outfit? What’d you think?’ ‘Oh, it’s great!’ ‘Put it on. Let’s see it.’ I’m like, ‘Here’s the rib. Here’s the HAHA.’ I go and put that stupid sh*t on and come out of the bathroom. There’s Chavo [Guerrero] and Booker [T] and they both started laughing and sh*t. I nod my head. I’m gonna soak it all in. Right at that moment JBL walked up and said, ‘God da*n it I smell heat. That’s fuc*ing heat.’ I tell Johnny. I’m like, ‘Alright man, where’s the real outfit? The one we discussed?’ He’s like, ‘That’s it. You don’t like that?’ I’m like, ‘Hell no, I don’t like this sh*t. This is not what we talked about.’ ‘What’s wrong with it?’ ‘Man, I don’t look like a high performance athlete. I look like a figure skater in this sh*t man.’ Then Batista walks up. He’s like, ‘John, what the fu*k. Guys got some big arms. At least let him cut the arms out.’ We went over to see Vince and as I walk up to Vince, Vince eyes me up and down and goes, ‘I love it. Your egos gonna get that over.’ I’m like, ‘Awww sh*t.’ So I had to be make my debut in that stupid ass fu*ing outfit.
On Asking For His WWE Release:
I was in a tag team with Mark Henry that they really didn’t do anything with and I was just kind of floating around RAW. Then I got sent back to SmackDown and not long after that I asked for my release, so I could go pursue my dream of wrestling in Japan. I had a year left on my deal and they were trying to get me to sign a 5 year deal. I just wasn’t interested. WWE for me was a goal. New Japan [Pro Wrestling] was a dream. Wrestling at a WrestleMania was a goal. Wrestling at the Tokyo Dome, that was my dream. That was what I was looking to accomplish.
On Being Able To Keep The MVP Name:
[I was able to use it because of a] deal I had in place with WWE. Much to their credit, when they signed me, MVP was my creation. I pitched it to them. They could have said, ‘OK, just sign it over to us in its entirety,’ and I would have. I didn’t have any leverage. I couldn’t have told them no and our contractual arrangement regarding the use of MVP and the ownership was contractually worked out, so that it was beneficial for both of us, so they didn’t fu*k me over for my shirt.
MVP also opened about his memorable feud with Matt Hardy and compares the different cultures on SmackDown and RAW.
Readers interested in listening to Why It Ended in its entirety may do so below:
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