If you’ve followed with “Wrestling With Whiskey” brand it might surprise you that Aiden English never really enjoyed alcohol before, but now it’s one of the many projects he’s working on in his post-WWE career.
The former NXT Tag Team Champion spoke with Managing Editor Bill Pritchard as to what prompted his passion for libations as well as what he’s got lined up in the next chapter of his life. English (real name Matt Rehwoldt) says he doesn’t consider himself to be a “connoisseur” or anything fancy, he just looks at it as being an enthusiast and says there’s a lot more involved than just throwing down some drinks.
“I’m just a fan, man. The best word I can come up with is an enthusiast. I’m a whiskey enthusiast. It really kind of snuck up on me. I wanted to drink like an adult. I was over pounding shots and partying of like the college years and things like that. Let’s put it this way—I never enjoyed alcohol,” Rehwoldt said. “It was just a means to an end, right? It was just a way to get loose for a party and just like it is for a lot of young people.
“I would always see my dad who was a big scotch drinker just enjoying his scotch with one ice cube or neat. I wanted to drink like an adult and so I got a book literally on how to drink and just treated it like a workout and just sat there each and every night with a soda and chased it until I didn’t need to chase it anymore,” Rehwoldt said, “and then I fell down this whole rabbit hole of collecting and learning about all the different companies and everything. It’s almost like any other niche hobby out there. There’s just a whole world that you never expected to find.”
At the beginning of June, Rehwoldt launched a Patreon that will give fans an opportunity to “social drink” with The Drama King himself, the virtual happy hour providing another unique way to interact in the quarantine era. Rehwoldt says he doesn’t want something pretentious coming from it, and his intention is to really give curious fans an easy start in building a foundation for a potential hobby. Questions like ‘What’s a good way to expand my palate?’ are the ones he asks, and he wants to educate people that are just getting into a potentially expensive hobby.
While whiskey was one topic at hand, IMPACT Wrestling surprised many people by airing a “future endeavored” promo teasing a new arrival at their Slammiversary pay-per-view next month. The clip featured several clear references to former WWE Superstars like Mike Bennett and Maria Kanellis, EC3, and other talent that was released by WWE on April 15. Fans were quick to point out that the whiskey glass was a definite nod to Aiden English, but as he pointed out, it’s not him in the video due to one specific detail—drinking whiskey on the rocks is something he wouldn’t do.
“I probably should have let people dive into that a little bit more but the whiskey man in me had to say something. It’s actually a very cool promo. You see almost little aspects of almost everybody who was part of that wave of releases and everything. I don’t know who made it but I would like to think that was their potential little throw towards me.
“I do get a kick out of the fact that this ‘Wrestling With Whiskey’ thing has become known enough both amongst whiskey fans, but also amongst the wrestling fans that when something like that pops up then that’s kind of the immediate reaction so I get a kick out of that.”
(Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo of WrestleZone)
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