Trevor Murdoch recently spoke with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard and talked about his NWA National Championship win, and looked back on his run with WWE.
During the interview, Murdoch talked about how WWE set the precedent for physical specimens in wrestling and ‘normalized’ the bodybuilder type of wrestler’s physique. While it’s not as much of an issue today, Murdoch noted how there was definitely a ceiling during his initial run for some wrestlers based on how much they did or didn’t fit the “Superstar” mold.
“WWE has kind of, what’s the best way I can put it—they’ve ‘normalized’ the fact that a wrestler has to be jacked, cut-up abs, just this beautiful physical specimen, and that every wrestler has to be that way, or they’re not a star. We’ve been conditioned to think that. And that’s because for so long, WWE had a stronghold as being the number one company in the world, Murdoch explained. “There are so many talented wrestlers out there that look their part and that may not be a guy who’s chiseled and has 3% body fat. NWA is a place for guys to go and get over, for guys to go out there and be real.”
Upon joining WWE, Murdoch and Lance Cade quickly won the WWE World Tag Team Championship, but politics and physical attributes led to some up-and-down booking in their respective careers. Murdoch explained how their title run was “pulled away for no reason” and didn’t get an explanation at the time, but noted that they later found out it was due to an argument with a head producer. Later on, Murdoch says he and Cade were pulled off of television and while they kept throwing out ideas to WWE to bring themselves back, they continued to be rejected. When asking for an explanation why, Murdoch says the writing team told them it was due to Vince McMahon and a particular issue related to the duo’s appearance.
“We were pulled off of TV, and we were throwing ideas to the writers, and every week we were just getting just shot down like, ‘No, no, no.’ And we hit up one of the writers one day and we’re like, ‘We keep giving you guys ideas, you guys are coming up with ideas, who’s shutting us down?’ And they straight up told us it’s Vince.”
“We sat down with him, Lance is on one side, I’m on the other side, and we just asked him outright, ‘The writers are throwing ideas at you, we’re throwing ideas at you, and you keep shooting us down. What is it that you are not happy with when it comes to us?’ And he pulled his glasses down, looked at both of us, and he looked at Lance, who had black hair at the time, and he goes, ‘I hate your fake black hair.’ And he looked at me, and he goes, ‘I don’t like your pasty white skin.’ The next day, I’m tan and my partner’s got bleached blonde hair… Sure enough, Vince gets a picture of it, that next week, we’re on TV.”
The full interview with Trevor Murdoch is available here:
