Your men’s Money In The Bank winner Otis happened to be the latest guest on Chasing Glory with Lilian Garcia and the one half of Heavy Machinery had some very inspiring matters to share about his background.
Otis first talked about growing up in a strict household with disciplinary parents and talked about how it benefited him in his development into adutlhoood.
“There’s also different outlaw of childs. Like, I was a very wild kid, definitely deserved it. As an attention disorder, like it’s hard for me to sit still in one place so for me, my parents always had a hard time keeping me sitting down somewhere, not yelling at the top of my lungs, wearing weird costumes in grocery stores (I’d always be Batman every Friday at the grocery store, pretend I was Batman in my costume I was five years old).”
“I grew up with the Attitude Era and I’m seeing eeeverything. I’m seeing everybody, I just would watch action movies with my dad,” said Otis. “When I was a kid, I’d be yelling out a bunch of things Stone Cold would say or I’d even be Val Venis sometimes, get myself in trouble in school.”
“My brother was always quiet so he never got the *slap noise*, but I always got it, every damn time.”
Otis grew up with his half brother and sister, who passed away back in 2012. Despite his siblings being older, he always remained close with those two. He reveals that his older brother ended up turning into a policeman and Lilian asks if he found a strict upbringing beneficial.
“Absolutely and I think it’s a great combo with amateur wrestling and being raised tough and just that old school mentality,” he said. “I think it’s a lot hard to pretend you’re working, than actual working so my mentality is like ‘just get it done baby.'”
“I had a lot of coaches in my life too in amateur wrestling that really pushed me in strict ways.”
Otis does talk about his diet and his love for red meat is not just a gimmick, brother.
“I stay close to red meats and the pork, but that’s the way I was raised too cause I didn’t know what a McDonald’s was until about like fourth grade,” he said. “I was raised on Texas toast and like rye bread or my mom said, ‘That’s gonna melt your muscles quit doing that.'”
Otis first wrestled in a singlet, but since coming to the main roster he was asked to just wrestle in trunks and despite not ever doing so, he rolled with the idea.
“They wanted me to go to trunks, and I never wore trunks before and I don’t have a lot of insecurities, but in my head I’m going, ‘Wow that’s not going to look good on camera here. I got a shakey belly, ya know?’ They said just do your thing and do it in trunks.” His new attire happened to be none other than “The Mecca” Madison Square Garden.
“That was my first time at The Garden and I said, ‘Guys we just can’t go straight to the underwear, we gotta do something,’ and Tucky’s just like, ‘Yeah that makes just no sense for you just to go,’ and he was still wearing the butcher cause they didn’t say much about him going to the trunks at this moment. They go, ‘Otis has to be in trunks.’ I’m like, ‘I don’t have a pair of trunks,’ so I said, ‘How about this? We get to the comeback, I will just slowly strip down to the thing, now we have a normal pair of trunks under my butcher [singlet].’ So I take it off and the people go nuts and I’m sitting there shaking my belly. So I guess I’m making a living shaking my belly…”
Otis states that he gained a good amount of weight just in a few years (he actually wrestled almost half his size in high school), but it hasn’t been an issue for him, particularly since he’s been training with someone who very much knows what they’re doing as far as endurance is concerned.
“I’ve always had a high level of training, especially now with Chad Gable here in St. Michael, MN we just keep on, he’s a machine so he goes, ‘C’mon, get to the next set, get up the hill,’ I’m just like, ‘Ah, so dang tired.’ But to me it’s just, I don’t know. I’ve been this weight probably about three years.”
Lilian asks Otis if he was picked on in high school and the MITB briefcase holder gives details:
“Absolutely, oh yeah. With being in not regular classes, I remember being in high school for example where I’m a known jock sportsman in the high school, but nobody would see me,” Otis mentioned. ” I’m not trying to talk bad about them, that’s just the way it was back then, that’s just the way the system was. They’d make the troubled kids go with the disabled kids,” and Otis happened to have some reading dyslexia. “I’ve always been made fun of, the way I look, nnot always the weight problems, but just the way I looked and just the reading solely, I mean I got plenty of stories with me trying to follow kids back home trying to get at them but it’s just I wasn’t the fast one and yeah, reading assessment was weird. These days, like it’s funny to look back now because a lot of those kids that did do that, I don’t think they have the balls to talk to me anymore. I don’t think.”
(Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo of WrestleZone)
So much more from this fascinating interview and you can watch it all with Lilian and Otis below:
