I'd rather it to just be not so much men's wrestling and women's wrestling but that we're all on the same playing field.
Mostly the guys I worked with like wrestling AJ Styles, Jamie Noble, wrestling Chavo Guerrero, wrestling Rey Mysterio... As much as I try to be an individual or unique I can't deny the strong effect these guys have all had on me.
When I started wrestling, I sucked. I hated losing, so I started doing pushups and more squats, and then I did summer wrestling and learned different styles.
I remember when I had just left WWE and I was wrestling in England and Germany, I could just tell that this influx of this new wave of wrestling was coming much like it felt when I began wrestling back in '99.
I think sometimes wrestling fans will feel different, but the thing is, 'Total Divas' introduced women's wrestling to the world.
Wrestling can be anything... There's some forms of wrestling that I'm not too big a fan of, but I'm not going to say it's not wrestling because it is wrestling.
In my first fight, I acknowledged it. I'm a professional wrestler, this is who I am, who you know me as. But guess what, I've also been wrestling since I was 5 years old - real wrestling - amateur wrestling, Olympic wrestling.
I was just lucky to be there ahead of the curve to be the driving force behind bringing this amazing style of wrestling from Japan that combined Lucha Libre, American professional wrestling, Canadian professional wrestling and Japanese wrestling all into one beautiful mix that fans worldwide absolutely can't get enough of.
I see it as my responsibility to start trying to help wrestling because if I don't do something, wrestling is going to die - like, wrestling as we know it.
The true wrestling fans that watch TNA Impact, I think they've always known. I don't want to say they take it for granted in anyway, but they always just know that TNA and Impact Wrestling are going to give them women's wrestling.
Wrestling used to be interesting. There was a bit of sham involved, of course, but there was some real wrestling involved. They're just characters now. It's unrecognizable. There's no fighting in American bloody wrestling. They just yell at each other and jump around like overweight ballet dancers.
Wrestling can be as much or as little as you want it to be. Everyone likes different movies, different music, different colors. They have a right to their opinion, but to say, 'This isn't wrestling,' well, yeah, it is.
While wrestling in college as a junior it came to a point where wrestling just wasn't enough for me anymore. I love wrestling, but I felt like I was missing something, and so the striking part about MMA, the boxing and kickboxing, was what got me really interested in MMA. I saw it on TV and I just knew that I wanted to do it.
Kurt Angle was amazing. He was the person who got me into pro wrestling. He found me when I was at the Olympic training center just wrestling, amateur wrestling.
The two sports are as different as Ping-Pong and rugby. In boxing, you don’t know what’s going to happen. In wrestling, it’s already prearranged. But the thing I didn’t know about wrestling is that you really get hurt. Because, you know, you’re wrestling in front of a live audience, and you end up doing things like jumps or slams, and 40 percent of the time you don’t land right.
While wrestling in college as a junior, it came to a point where wrestling just wasn't enough for me anymore. I love wrestling, but I felt like I was missing something, and so the striking part about MMA, the boxing and kickboxing, was what got me really interested in MMA.