It was a big man's sport at one time. Maybe I had something to do with breaking that barrier and having WWE open up their eyes so they can sign younger, lighter talent.
I had a habit of watching classic wrestling pretty much on repeat in the locker rooms. With the influx of talent at WWE, with guys like Kevin Owens, he was one of the first people to open my eyes up to the world that is PWG and BOLA.
There's a huge fan base behind NXT, which is cool because that opens up the door to younger talent that maybe at one point thought that it was impossible to ever get into WWE, but now, there it is.
Having talent is like having blue eyes. You don't admire a man for the colour of his eyes. I admire a man for what he does with his talent.
Maybe I'm a damaged man. I think we're all damaged in some ways. When I was younger I never thought I had any way of breaking through the hardships.
My middle name really is perseverance. I've always believed that I had talent, even when I felt like a very inferior sort of person, which I spent a lot of time living my life feeling that I wasn't worthy. But even then I knew that I had something special, and maybe that's what it takes. Maybe people need to have that kind of particular core driving them. But I felt I had talent.
Growing up in any big city, you get exposed to so many beautiful cultures. I've grown up with a lot of open eyes around me that's influenced my eyes to open.
The WWE is fine. They can afford to not only sign anybody they really want, but they can also afford to sign people just to keep them out of the talent pool that everybody else has.
I had a really good time at MGM. And we had no quarrels much, except once in a while, I'd go up to the front office and say I thought I should be doing something big, like washing elephants ... All my life I wanted to have talent ... Finally I had to admit there was nothing there.
Closing your eyes isn't going to change anything. Nothing's going to disappear just because you can't see what's going on. In fact, things will even be worse the next time you open your eyes. That's the kind of world we live in. Keep your eyes wide open. Only a coward closes his eyes. Closing your eyes and plugging up your ears won't make time stand still.
I had eight brothers and sisters. Every Christmas my younger brother Bobby would wake up extra early and open everybody's presents - everybody's - so by the time the rest of us got up, all the gifts were shredded, ribbons off, torn open and thrown aside.
I felt old when I was young and I feel younger now. Maybe that's a trick of my mind, but I'm springier and lighter.
I had some interesting costumes... the one that I remember right offhand is Zorro when I was a lot younger. I was a big time Zorro fan. My mom helped me make it, and I remember having a big issue with the fact that she wouldn't let me carry around a real metal sword; it just had to be plastic.
Maybe she should cut the guy a little slack, [...] Maybe Thorne had been a no-show because something bad happened to him on the job. What if he'd been injured in the line of duty and didn't come by as promised because he was incapacitated in some way? Maybe he hadn't called to apologize or to explain his absence because he physically couldn't. Right. And maybe she had checked her brain into her panties from the second she first laid eyes on the man.
In North America, there aren't too many big places to go, so you find that pretty much all of the best talent in the world ends up filtering through WWE.
Poverty is a big barrier if you are at the bottom layer of society, don't know where the next meal is coming from. It is not a big barrier of taking the rich with the poor in a big society to provide schooling for all.
I want to be Jacques Pepin. I want to have a nice 50-, 60-year career. I want to be on PBS when I'm 70-something, still kicking it, having a great time, showing up in Aspen to sign cookbooks. I just want to have a nice, big, long career.