WWE Cruiserweight Champion Brian Kendrick recently spoke with Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated’s Extra Mustard to promote 205 Live, and below are some interview highlights:
On what fans can expect from 205 Live:
“On 205 Live, you can expect to be entertained,” explained Kendrick. “The Brian Kendrick character is a man who is going to use his wits to win. His intelligence is every bit as admirable as his death-defying stunts.”
On his 2009 WWE release:
“My family didn’t believe in me, my friends didn’t believe in me, and that’s not because they are negative people,” explained the 37-year-old Kendrick. “They were very pragmatic about the whole situation. But if I wanted to gamble on anything, I wanted to gamble on myself.
“I continued to believe that I was a wrestler. My wife has been with me through it all, we’ve been together since 2002. There were times in the last few years where she just wanted me to keep wrestling, but also go be a garbage man or something as we were drowning in bills. But I wouldn’t be satisfied if I didn’t get a chance to continue to wrestle, and it was very selfish of me, but this is the one thing I think I’m good at. I feel at home. This is where I feel I belong. So I kept pushing along.”
On Daniel Bryan and William Regal pushing for his WWE return in the CWC:
“Daniel Bryan is the best in the world,” said Kendrick. “I was wrestling in Europe during WrestleMania XXX and didn’t have the chance to watch it. No one can do what he did the way he did it. When I heard the news about WrestleMania, I got a little choked up. This is a kid who I roomed with—he was eighteen, I was twenty—when we first broke in.”
“I think they liked what I did in the ring before I got fired. I believe they did, but it was my attitude,” Kendrick added. “So had I really changed or was I just acting on my best behavior, and then was I going to crack at the wrong time?”
On not knowing what the future held for him after he was eliminated from the CWC:
“A lot of guys were getting contract offers throughout the tournament and I wasn’t,” explained Kendrick. “Then I lost my match to Ibushi, and I was told, ‘We might want to use you sometime in the future.’ I kind of sunk inside—I felt like that was a nice way of saying, ‘Thanks for a good job, we’ll see you when we see you.’
“Then I heard Mr. McMahon got a chance to watch the tournament, and some people talked, and I don’t know what the plans were. But it was after I’d already been eliminated and I was gone when they called me up and offered me something. I’m going to do my best to hold onto it and not be my own worst enemy anymore.”
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
