The first wrestling event I ever went to was PCW Ultra in L.A., and it was insane. They had RVD wrestling, Shane Strickland, Penta, and all these incredible indie wrestlers.
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.
Modern day wrestlers are fans of the performance of wrestling instead of the concept of wrestling.
In the wrestling world, we say the Judo guys are just the leftover wrestlers that couldn't make the wrestling team.
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.
A lot of U.K. wrestlers are very good at chain wrestling, telling a story through holds, while American wrestling is a little more flashy, with lots of high-spots.
I feel more a part of the wrestling community than I feel I belong to the community of arts and letters. Why? Because wrestling requires even more dedication than writing because wrestling represents the most difficult and rewarding objective that I have ever dedicated myself to; because wrestling and wrestling coaches are among the most disciplined and self-sacrificing people I have ever known.
I never trained in pro wrestling with The Sheik, but I did amateur wrestling with pro wrestlers in my dad's basement.
Of course, I was an insane ECW fan. You don't get this deep into wrestling unless you are obsessed with wrestling so that was the final hook.
If you watch wrestling like I do, you watch for the wrestling. There's so much talking. There's some 'twit' back there with a pencil behind his ear writing down all these things for wrestlers to say.
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.
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 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.
They say that wrestlers are actors, and they couldn't be more wrong. The truth is wrestling and acting could not be more opposite. Wrestling is explosion, and acting is implosion.
I've been wrestling since I was 18 years old. And within the first five months of my wrestling career, I'd already had three concussions. And for years after that, I would get a concussion here and there, and it gets to the point that when you've been wrestling for 16 years, that adds up to a lot of concussions.
In the early 1900s, wrestlers who attained main event success were largely all tough men who could handle themselves in any environment whether it be in a wrestling ring or a tavern.
Wrestling was you wrestle in college and you become a high school coach. That was it for wrestlers. We just started to realize there is a legitimate career choice we can choose to use all our wrestling skills we spent our entire lives learning. There is something we can do it now, it's MMA.