Colt Cabana was on Busted Open with Doug Mortman and Dave LaGreca yesterday and he discussed the Chicago Cubs World Series victory, his new DVD Wrestling Road Diaries 3: Funny Equals Money, comedy in wrestling, his time with the WWE and how they view independent wrestlers, the Art of Wrestling episode with CM Punk and his relationship with Punk. Here are a few choice quotes:
On comedy in wrestling:
“I do believe that it works in places. The genre of pro-wrestling should kind of be a ‘goodie vs a baddie’ and these storylines, and then you need to pepper in…the whole basis of wrestling is that idea and that’s why they have different things just to spice up an even, and that’s why they would have a ‘little person’ match or a women’s match or even back in the day that’s what a tag team was, to help spice it up. That’s what comedy is, it’s not meant to take over the whole genre of pro-wrestling, it’s just meant to be a little thing here and there to help spice it up.”
On being and independent wrestler trying to make it to the WWE:
“Well, when you said I had a ‘run’ with the WWE, I would more call it a ‘slow jog’ maybe or a ‘brisk walk’ [laughs]I don’t know about a run. I’ve always championed the independent scene. Right before my goal was to get signed with the WWE, I guess, I had done 8 years and I travelled the world and I fell in love with that scene. I never really thought I’d be in the WWE, when I first started wrestling in 1999, when I first started getting decent at wrestling in around 2001, wrestlers that they would want were guys like Mark Jindrak or Sean O’Haire, they just looked like guys that I would never look like. To me, my trajectory was always to be an independent wrestler forever, hopefully I’ll make enough money to do this for life. So I kind of always assumed I would be an independent wrestler so I always championed the scene. Obviously when I came back on the scene in 2009, it was my goal to be able to make a living and to almost show the WWE that they missed out on something in myself.”
On how the WWE views independent wrestlers:
“They’re always a little late to the party, I would say. I remember them telling me that podcasts were stupid and there was no money in it…independent wrestling when I was there was taboo word. I was shunned for the way that I came up in the scene, like there was any other option, like I could go to some territory and start, that was the only option for guys like me. It’s nice that they’ve turned around. It’s cool that guys have an opportunity to go on their shows and then come back to the independents. It’s a nice thing where a guy like Tony Neese or [Ariya] Daivari can be on such a huge platform, and then be able to go to the local shows and maybe help bring in some people the shows and help build the independent scene. That’s what it’s always been based off, back in the day it was bringing in guys like Tito Santana and Greg ‘The Hammer’ Valentine because they had all this TV power, and you tried to build a little scene. Well, now it’s kind of cool that the scene is based off independent stars now and not the guys who had a run 30 years ago.
On his WWE run coming to an end:
“It’s the best thing that ever happened to my career, it was so bad that it kind of charged me up and made me…my life and career is so great right now, it’s unbelievable. I’m so happy that…hindsight…at the time it was the worst, looking back at it, it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me…You know if I had more time I could have gone on to do ‘whatever’ also the other way, but if what happened didn’t happen…I love what I’m doing right now so I’m so glad that what happened, happened so that I could be where I am right now.
On reflecting on the ‘Art of Wrestling’ podcast episode w/ CM Punk:
“My [podcast]is more about the struggles. I like the idea of ‘our struggles, our internal struggles’ as opposed to character development or storylines or whatnot. Obviously, the Punk one had a lot to do with struggles at the time with his career. The weird thing was, it shut down our servers…It kind of took me a step back…I had to work with a new team to put my infrastructure together…I had to have everyone re-subscribe and some people didn’t, so it really didn’t help me, it almost hindered me a little bit. In terms of heat and whatnot…I don’t know backlash, there’s still an on-going thing in the court system so I can’t really talk too much about that.
On his relationship with CM Punk:
“I would just say don’t believe what you read on the internet.”
Busted Open with Doug Mortman and Dave LaGreca can be heard Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday from 2p-4p Eastern Time only on SiriusXM Rush Channel 93 and if you’d like to hear the full interview it can be found online at SiriusXM.com/OnDemand or on your phone on the SiriusXM App.
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
