Former WWE star and current IMPACT Wrestling signee Rhyno recently gave a great interview to Sporting News. During it, he talked his last run with WWE and explained why he enjoyed time away from television, why he chose to sign with IMPACT, and if it was really him at the Slammiversary pay-per-view.
Check out highlights below:
Why he signed a multi-year deal with IMPACT:
It means a lot on several different things. One, just for the simple fact that it’s a company on the right path for almost two years. They have been moving in a direction where wrestling fans want a company to go in terms of letting the talent be the talent, having bookers booking the matches on the card opposed to writers.
I think a lot of fans are drawn to a promotion like that. Not speaking against other promotions, but you other promotions doing it differently because they’re very successful. But I think there’s nitch where you have to let talent be talent and have enough talent where it’s not drowned out too much and where you don’t have enough TV time and run enough shows to use them. It’s up to the talent, whether to sink or swim. And IMPACT because guys have more control when their contracts are up.
On if he was the masked man during Slammiversary:
I cannot confirm or deny. But I will go on the record of saying I was still under contract no matter who I worked for. Whether it’s my word or a contract, I will do it justice. But with that being said, Rob Van Dam was also under contract when he appeared on Monday Night Raw for the Reunion show.
So, does IMPACT and WWE have some sort of backdoor understanding type of agreement? Or was that not me? Or was that me? Did WWE allow me or give my blessings? Because at the end of the day, what are they going to do? Fire me? But at the end of the day, doing business is one of the essential things in wrestling. I try to stress that to younger talent. It’s always beneficial to do good business because it ends up being best for the wrestling business and the fans.
His thoughts on his latest WWE run:
I loved it. The last three months of my contract, I was sitting at home. And a lot of people would say it’s a punishment. It wasn’t. It was just business. I can’t say one bad thing about WWE just for the simple fact of that they allowed me to make money. You have to be responsible for your actions.
I think what had happened is when I was going into WWE, I was burnt out because I was running for office. I was on the road making all of my bookings on the indies and then doing the shows on the weekend. Then during the week, I would spend 10 hours a day knocking on doors from 10:30 a.m. until you couldn’t go anymore because it would get too late and you can’t knock on people’s doors amid summer time in the heat and running a campaign and figuring things out. You have to remember it’s just a business.
And I didn’t take that time to go and get in better shape. When I got there, and I’ll be honest with you, every time I went to the ring, I gave 110 percent. But I got lazy. I got comfortable. I didn’t diet. I always went to the gym to stretch and do a little cardio. I really didn’t go crazy. With me, I have to have a low carb (diet), eat every couple hours in small portions because that will keep my metabolism up and workout five days a week. It was unfortunate. WWE never said anything to me. They never said anything to anybody to the best of my knowledge. I just didn’t put in the effort.
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