TNA star Ethan Carter III recently spoke with Busted Open Radio about what makes him such a good heel in the business right now.
During the interview, EC3 revealed his take on the reason he’s an exceptional heel compared to other “bad guys” in the business.
“I just don’t do cool moves. I know what you guys are saying and it’s very difficult, in this day and age especially, because some of the audience is – they like their villains, they like their antagonists. Probably because when you play that role, you can come out of your shell a lot more and maybe – I don’t want to say be more entertaining – be outside yourself more, be out there more. Some fans attract to that, but when people boo me, that was a compliment because I work to get those….Most of the time the fans enjoy booing me and it’s not negative ‘They don’t want to see me’. It’s they want to see me get what’s coming to me and I think that’s really important.”
He also shared his thoughts on why heels in wrestling aren’t getting as much heat as they probably should.
“I think a lot of times a lot of guys coming up – the guys that you’re supposed to cheer, the guys that you’re supposed to boo – the guys that you’re supposed to boo are doing heroic things and very impressive things and it’s hard to dislike a guy who’s beating everybody cleanly with his finish. It’s hard to dislike a guy who’s spouting off funny comments when he grabs a guy in a hold, you know? It’s hard to dislike that because it’s entertaining. It’s very hard to dislike cool-ass moves because they’re cool-ass moves and cool-ass moves are cool. If you’re an antagonist that’s cool, it kind of defeats the purpose a little bit so for me, personally, I try to stay away from that. I try to see where other heels, bad guys, villains are going and what they’re doing and I just try to be the opposite of it as much as possible. But even for me, when I’m doing promos, wrestling matches, it comes to a time where I have to do things to at least have some credibility attached to what I’m doing. It’s a very slippery slope as well, but I just got to find the right balance, I think.”