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 was a big wrestling fan growing up. That was my thing. I had the action figures and the magazines and everything like that.
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 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.
I literally view wrestling as the time when I was playing with action figures. You can make anything out of it. You can make it be fun.
I used to be weak - as did all British fighters - with wrestling, because we don't have high school wrestling or college wrestling here.
In college wrestling, you see a lot of talented athletes come in and fail because Division I class wrestling is the pinnacle of wrestling in America.
I feel like I started with wrestling, and a love of pro wrestling, that lead me to MMA and the UFC. And now it's come full circle back to pro wrestling.
It took me a few years to explain to my colleagues and my mentors and the people that I looked up to and I wrestled that I'm not in wrestling anymore. I'm in sports entertainment. Pro' wrestling doesn't mean that we're saying we're a step up above amateur wrestling, because there's nothing above Olympic wrestling.
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.
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.
Wrestling has positively impacted my life in many ways, but perhaps the one singular thing that I gained from wrestling that stands out the most is wrestling provided me with the opportunity to learn mental toughness!
Stan Hansen is arguably the most popular, most famous, foreign wrestler in Japanese wrestling history. One of the absolute biggest names in wrestling.
I am into professional wrestling. Only Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling can qualify in Olympics. I chose professional wrestling for fame and limelight and good money.
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.