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.
I grew up a huge wrestling fan. My grandfather, who was a minister and retired when I was a young kid in Sweetwater, Texas, lived right near us. He was a big wrestling fan.
My real mom had two kids, my half-sister Tara and my half-brother Clint. When I was growing up Clint was a big wrestling fan and he instilled that into me. I was immediately encapsulated with everything pro wrestling.
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.
When I first got into wrestling as a kid, I would read all of the wrestling magazines I could get my hands on. There was a satisfaction discovering that there was a whole wrestling world that existed that you didn't see on TV on Saturday morning. There was this idea that there was this stuff going on there that they didn't want us to see.
I know him as Terry. Hulk Hogan has probably done more for wrestling than anybody has. He got Hollywood involved in wrestling. Hogan was a big guy, but that big ol' guy could move, and he knew how to get those people going. He had it all. He got pro wrestling to a whole new level.
I always said to myself when I first started wrestling that I was gonna put absolutely everything into it - into becoming the absolute best pro wrestling that I could be.
Pro wrestling has always been ingrained into American culture. It was one of the first things that was ever on television, so everybody watched it. Countless people tell me, 'I got into wrestling because my grandfather watched it.' It was always there.
I love what I'm seeing out there with Pro Wrestling Syndicate, Northeast Wrestling, Big Time Wrestling, and WildKat in New Orleans. There is a lot of good stuff out there.
I became a wrestling fan in college. So, I was more of a wrestling fan as an adult than when I was a little kid.
The nWo was the greatest time in professional wrestling because we were going into mixed stadiums like the Georgia Dome. That was one of the greatest times in pro wrestling and was the most profitable time in pro wrestling.
Back in the day, when I was getting into the business, you could watch Pro Wrestling Noah. You could watch Ring Of Honor Wrestling, and a lot of people would say, 'the best wrestling in the world is actually at Ring Of Honor.'
I always had watched pro wrestling. I happened to be watching the WWE Network one day and started watching differently: I wasn't watching it as a fan, but instead I was watching it as something that I could possibly be a part of.
I'm very aware that pro wrestling fans can be some of the most vocal and passionate and descriptive about how they feel when it comes to pro wrestling. So I'm totally fine with how fans talk about how they feel, cause if they're not allowed to voice how they feel, then what's the point of being a wrestling fan. You gotta know what you like and what you do't like and that's fine.
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.
Why don't they allow professional wrestling at the Olympics? They allow pro basketball players and hockey players. Olympic pro wrestling would be awesome. The team from Mexico could wear those Mr. X masks. The French wrestler could hit his opponent with a baguette. Or perhaps just surrender.