Paul Roma On His Mission Wrestling In The '80s

Paul Roma recently spoke with Wrestlezone’s Kevin Kellam ahead of his appearance at ’80s Wrestling Con next month.

Roma is one of the many names appearing at the event on Saturday, April 27th in Freehold, NJ at iPlay America. During the interview, Roma talked about how he broke into wrestling and why so many former football players are drawn to the sport, and went on to explain his own mission during the ’80s:

I had a mission that I had set forth [on]. I had my goals that I wanted to do. How I wanted to become notable and be that guy. That was the mindset that I had at the time. I did get overwhelmed with what was going on was I started to understand what the business was about.

My baby sister was born with Down’s [syndrome]. So, what am I doing so great with my life? I have a job, my own home, money, and here she is struggling and there are a lot of other kids like that. I just wanted to be a role model for them. So, I set my mind to it and I went out to make an impression. It made it a lot easier when you visit these kids and I became a spokesperson for St. Jude’s and these kids knew who you were. When they can put the face with the sport and wrestling was so popular back then, it made life a lot easier because they knew who I was. It was still hard since I knew where they were at and how bad it was that they were in this place.

I’ve done podcasts, a bunch of interviews. People go, “Oh he’s angry.” I’m not per se angry, I’m angry at myself that I wasn’t able to accomplish more. I’m angry at times at the WWF because I had something behind it. It’s not just about becoming famous and making money. It wasn’t about that or belts. I put no value on that. Now I have a wrestling school and I hear guys talk. “I’d wrestle for free.” That’s what they want and not what you’re there for. You’re breaking your ass now and you go out there to make money unless you have an agenda. I had an agenda and I needed to fulfill it.

Roma also reminisced about his career highlights working as a team, putting The Rockers at the top of the list of his favorite team to work with:

Power and Glory against The Rockers. We enhanced what they did, they enhanced what we did. There were no egos in the ring. [We] both got over and we gelled. We had great matches with the Hart Foundation, but Jim Neidhart is tough to work with. Great guy, tough to work with. Bret is super-super.