Konnan Interview with The News Hub
In an interview with Marc Madison of The News Hub, Konnan talks about his experience in Lucha Underground and who he thinks was the most underrated faction in WCW. You can read the entire interview here. Some highlights are below:
On his Experience in Lucha Underground:
It’s incredible because you know what Rey Mysterio and Juventud and Psychosis and all those guys did, Hector Garza did back in 1997 in WCW to me was the forbearer of what we are seeing here today in Lucha Underground, fifteen years later. This is what happened and the most beautiful part for me is when I came to WCW and I talked to Kevin Sullivan and Eric Bischoff about bringing in Luchadores it was an all Mexican thing. They were all Mexicans and when you look at Lucha Underground you have Puerto Ricans, Blacks, and White Boys you’ve got everybody now doing Lucha Libre. That is so beautiful to me. The thing is Chris DeJoseph Eric Van Wagenen, John Fogelman, the guys that run the show, I don’t think they have ever done anything Lucha related and they aren’t latino, which was a huge concern for me. But unlike, Bischoff, Dixie, Jarrett and Vince, they have a profound respect and pride in the Mexico heritage and lucha libre and they are very open minded and great to work with plus I would be remiss if I did not thank the behind the scene latinos who support this 100% Dorian Roldan, Antonio Cue and Alex Garcia.
What we do is straight Lucha in Mexico. What I do is straight Lucha in Mexico. What they are doing in Lucha Underground is a hybrid and they are taking chances. These are things that we don’t’ even do in Mexico. They have taken chances. If you don’t take one foot forward you are always going to be in the same place. If you don’t ask that questions, the answer will always be no. They have gone out there and done a lot of cool different things that has never been seen before and you have an incredible cast of wrestlers and of course the production staff by El Rey. It’s just a product that’s never been seen before.
Most under rated faction he was a part of in WCW:
I think the one that comes to mind is the Filthy Animals. Imagine this in the same faction. You had Torrie Wilson, Billy Kidman, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Disco Inferno, Konnan and then for a while there we had Juventud (Guererra). So there is a lot of talent right there and they just didn’t do anything with us. The problem with WCW was and we all know and it’s been well documented and I know this is going to sound redundant but you had an owner that was a mark for the stars and the stars dictated what they wanted and they made sure that none of us got through. So none of us did, a lot of these guys had there to go to WWE. I give Vince credit for that.
Chris Jericho and Rey and (Chris) Benoit and Eddie had to leave WCW to become stars, would never had happened had they stayed. The funny thing about that group was I’ll tell you how it was formed. I had actually gone to Vince Russo who had just taken over and I said, ‘look, they’ve been burying us since before you got here and I don’t know if you have any plans to do anything with us but let me get a bunch of my friends, put us together and let us have fun and if you want bury us then at least we’ll be together and we’ll get buried together’. So I basically got a bunch of my friends which were the people I just named. Torrie was actually going out with Billy so we just brought her into the fold. That’s basically how the group came about. We did some angle where we buried Ric Flair in the desert, somewhere in Vegas I believe and nothing ever happened after that. We just knew they weren’t going to do anything but at least we were having fun being together.
