I understand it now because I worked with the best of the best, but I didn't get at first that people have an extreme passion for wrestling and the wrestlers. The fans are really intimately connected with each wrestler.
Wrestling fans dictate policy; they really do. What direction each wrestler takes usually revolves around what the fans think of them.
I learned from many people. I became a better wrestler thanks to my matches with Edge, with Christian, with Rey Mysterio, with John Cena - who, even though you, the fans, want to criticize him, John Cena is one of the best wrestlers of the universe.
I knew I wanted to be a wrestler, so I became the best wrestler in wrestling history.
I'm a wrestler, a very polished wrestler and some of my best attributes in wrestling are my scrambling ability and my clinch.
I was the first wrestler ever in the history of wrestling to star in a major motion studio picture that became #1 box office of the weekend, and that gave the itch to I don't know how many wrestlers.
I've learned to become a progressive man because I have four women in my life. And their mother, who I'm not married to anymore, but who impresses me because of our relationship. Because we have a very deep and friendly relationship that is completely about who we really are now. Before it was husband, wife, mother, father. But now it's about who we are as human beings. Because we didn't give up on each other. And because we didn't hurt each other and blister each other from a divorce. We became tight. Best friends. And more than that even, because now we're best parents.
Modern day wrestlers are fans of the performance of wrestling instead of the concept of wrestling.
I just think it's strange when people say, "There is no God." Because I feel so connected to people and things that I just can't deny that there's a God who wants us to tell good stories and be the best we can be and forgive and be forgiven, even if we're not the best we can be. I really believe innately that we do the best we can.
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 think the best wrestling always needs to pretend to be real, and Vince Russo's wrestling is so pathetically far-fetched and phony that I think he does a disservice to his wrestlers and the business.
Triple H is a former bodybuilder. He's all about bodies. He thought that Hulk Hogan was the greatest wrestler in the world. They think Ultimate Warrior was the greatest wrestler in the world because that's what they're attracted to, but he's not really a wrestling fan like I grew up. I was a wrestling fan.
I would have to say that Canada definitely produces the best wrestlers; I don't know why. I think Canada is a big wrestling country, and there are a lot of guys who are interested in wrestling in Canada.
But I really think wrestling with pure intentions just wrestling to be a better wrestler, eventually you will get there when the time is right.
The argument culture urges us to approach the world - and the people in it - in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done: The best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate; the best way to cover news is to find spokespeople who express the most extreme, polarized views and present them as 'both sides'; the best way to settle disputes is litigation that pits one party against the other; the best way to begin an essay is to attack someone; and the best way to show you're really thinking is to criticize.
WWE style is a much different platform than other wrestling companies. Each wrestler wrestles under strict rules that fans never know.
People at WWE would say, 'It doesn't matter if you're the best wrestler,' but I would think about Dean Malenko and Chris Benoit and Rey Mysterio. They weren't necessarily the greatest talkers, but they were great wrestlers. I wanted to be that person.