Mike Bennett hopes when people look back on his career that they won’t remember Mike Kanellis.
Current IMPACT Wrestling and NWA star Mike Bennett was the latest guest on the Wrestling Perspective Podcast to discuss a wide variety of subjects. When asked about telling his story on the independents instead of WWE, Bennett said former ROH / current New Japan commentator Kevin Kelly helped teach him to use the commentary team to help tell his story.
“Kevin Kelly was the one who taught me how to basically use and abuse the commentators,” Mike Bennett said. “He’s like, ‘they’re literally telling your story right now. They can get you over, or they can’t get you over. But if they don’t know anything about you, they can’t get you over.’ So I’ve always made it a point to go up and talk to the commentators and be like, This is what I’m doing. This is the name of this, this blah, blah, blah, but more importantly, what I started doing lately, which I didn’t do before, was I started telling the commentators what my own personal story was what I was trying to get across.
“I blatantly told them I’m trying to change my wrestling style. I don’t want to be ‘sports entertainer Mike’ anymore. I’m trying to be more pure NOAH, New Japan, old-school Ring of Honor style. Can you tell that story for me? If you see a move that you noticed Nigel did? Can you be like, Hey, that’s a Nigel McGuinness move I once saw him do. I was like, can you tell that story because to me, I never did that before. I was so focused on trying to get signed by WWE that in my head, I was like, you’ll get there. They’ll tell you what to do. I was just talking to Maria about this. And that was my mindset. It was get there. They’ll tell you what to do. Go kill it, and everything will be fine. Hunky-dory, life will be great. That was my mindset.
“And I never really focused on what story I wanted to tell on this journey who I wanted people to remember Mike Bennett as, and now that’s really all I think about in my head. I go, and it’s probably because I have kids now too where I’m just like, Who do I want them to remember me by? When they think when people talk about Mike Bennett, the wrestler. I want them to talk about a guy who was a badass f-cking wrestler who was a Ring of Honor wrestler who was a New Japan wrestler. I don’t want them to talk about Mike Kanellis, I mean, whatever. I’m okay with it. Because at the end of the day, I’ll tell my kids, I set out a goal. I did it; I accomplished it. There’s stuff to be taken away. But I’m now telling people this is my story because I want you to connect with me. I don’t want you to connect with what a company might make me. I want you to connect with me, Mike Bennett, the person.”
READ MORE: Mike Bennett Didn’t Know He Needed It, But He Found Closure At Slammiversary
What do you make of Mike Bennett’s comments? Have you appreciated his career more since departing WWE? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit the Wrestling Perspective podcast with a link back to this article for the transcription.
