Mikey Whipwreck spoke with Bob Kapur of SLAM! Wrestling before he took part in yesterday’s Greektown Wrestling event in Toronto, CA. Mikey talks about how he’s transitioned out of in-ring action to more of an out-of-ring role in the business and the growth and origins of his new podcast Front Row Material with Jerry Lynn and Mike Freland, Quotes from the article are below:
Mikey Whipwreck on limiting his in-ring physicality:
“My role these days is mostly managing, refereeing, signings. But I can’t really do a lot of bumps. My neck is still bad, and with all the concussions I’ve had, I can’t really do too much in terms of physicality,” he said.
It’s something that he was reminded of last year at Joey Janela’s spring break show. During that match, Whipwreck got into some action, including taking a big splash finisher.
“It’s one of those days that it felt like it was the right thing to do,” he recalled with some regret. “It popped into my head, I called it, and I was committed. I felt it for the next three days. My hips were all screwed up, I was (in pain). But it felt like a good idea at the time.”
On his Underdog’s Wrestling School:
“The school is good,” he said proudly. “We’ve got a bunch of guys who started in August, and we’re starting to really put things together now. Tommy Suede helps me on Saturdays, and I get them on Mondays and Thursdays. It’s going well. We’re getting to the point where we can get them to start having some basic matches.”
With former students like Amazing Red, Jay Lethal, Tony Nese, and Curt Hawkins, Whipwreck certainly has a strong teaching pedigree, and is committed to help all of his students get to those level of success.
“I’ve told (my students) that we’ll do what we can to help them achieve their goals, whether it’s to get to WWE, New Japan, or to be a Northeast US guy and work two, three times a month. It’s all up to them.”
“We start very basic — tie-ups, chain wrestling, take-downs. Then do some sequences, and build up to matches. We work on character development promos. And when they’re ready, I have no problem helping them (get shows) if they want. I’m having a lot of fun with it.”
On starting the Front Row Material podcast:
“I don’t really know how exactly that happened,” he laughed. “My buddy Mike Freland called me, but I wasn’t really interested at first. I’m kind of lazy, and I didn’t want to overexert myself — I coach my kid’s soccer team, I got the wrestling school going, I have a full-time job. Then Jerry asked me, and I thought with him and Mike, it could be fun.”
“It’s just basically me and Jerry being ourselves,” he described. “Jerry is who he is, and I’m generally grumpy and funny. And poor Mike is in the middle trying to be the regulator. People seem to like it. We’re doing it very ECW-like, just doing what we do and trying to have fun with it. We had Lance Storm on it last week, he was our first guest, so that was fun. We’re really just taking it as it comes, and in many ways, flying by the seat of our pants. If people enjoy it, great. And if it ever just fades away… I guess I’ll just coach some more soccer teams.”
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