Adam Copeland explains why he likes working younger talent.
The AEW superstar and former multi-time WWE world champion spoke about his recent showdown with Griff Garrison from last Saturday’s Collision during an interview with Busted Open Radio. He begins by explaining how the industry has changed and how important it is for younger talents to get reps on national television.
I’ve had a blast, I’ve had so much fun. Even this past weekend, getting in there with a guy like Griff Garrison. Just to get in there so that he can feel what it’s like, the difference that comes with that experience, because I look at it, and I look when I broke in and I had Rick Martel and Bad News Brown and all of these guys mentor me along the way. There’s not a lot of that anymore. All of these guys were doing the indies, and if you were lucky enough to get in there with them, man, I learned. I just soaked it all up. Now, it almost feels like these guys are gonna have to soak it up on national television, and that’s a different challenge until itself, along with social media. So that to me is really fun, though, to get these guys in there, get hands on them and feel what they’re all about so they can also feel what 30 years of experience feels like,
Copeland later addresses the criticism that he went too longer with Garrison, as their match was over five minutes. He explains that Garrison will be in the business well after he is gone, and that it is important for him to get established with a character that audiences know.
Because long after I’m gone, Griff Garrison will be there, and just like Bad News Brown showed me, or just like Rick Martel showed me, you just like Tom Prichard showed me or Pat Patterson showed me or Michael Hayes showed me or Bret Hart showed me, I’m in that stage of my career. So if I can get in there with Griff Garrison, what is a 30-second match gonna do for Griff Garrison? But suddenly now, you get a couple like, ‘Woah, he almost took that thing.’ Well now you add in the element of the story, like, Copeland took this kid maybe a little lightly, and there’s something to him. It’s also an opportunity for him to get on a microphone. It’s an opportunity for reps in front of an audience that will have eyes actually watching because there’s a character in there that they know. That to me is all that needs to be said. If he can get in there and we have five minutes of time in there, I feel like he can learn more in the five minutes than he would in probably 200 matches with people of the same experience. I know that sounds kind of cocky and egotistical, but that’s the way it was for me when I was his age. That’s what this is. That’s why. That’s why I wanna work a guy like Griff Garrison. That’s why, put me in there with Dante Martin or Lee Moriarty or Zak Zodiac. This is a part within the story that Christian and I are telling, where we can do this and add another layer in the final book that is this story. That’s so fun to me. I think nowadays, people are so, ‘Well, why isn’t it this? Why isn’t it right now?’ Then if you give them right now, ‘Well, they did it too quick.’ This is another chapter. While they continue to write more chapters on their end, I’m gonna write over here on this end, and there’s always a plan. Sometimes, like my favorite stories when I was growing up, and I know it’s a different time, but Steamboat/Savage, let ‘em wrestle for a year,
You can check out the full interview below.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)
