OVW President and former WWE superstar Al Snow recently appeared on the In My House podcast to discuss a multitude of subjects, including how he believes wrestling talent work too hard at trying to get over with the fans, and who are his favorite type of people to work with in the industry. Highlights from the interview are below.
How talent aren’t performing for fans anymore:
“The talent aren’t performing for you anymore. That’s a fact. They’re not going in the ring and wrestling for you. Your opinion doesn’t matter. They are wrestling for each other, trying to impress each other, and they are wrestling for that small group of people that write a report and give them a critical acclaim and say either it was really a good match or it was a bad match. That’s the truth. That’s why the talent are so caught up in today and in the locker room calling every single second, not living in the moment not reacting to each other, to the referee not interacting with the audience like they used to, they’re so concerned that they’re gonna forget the next thing that’s coming up, and they’re scared to death that they’re going to make a mistake. It’s not that you’ll notice it because you won’t. It’s that somebody in the back will notice it, and we’ll call them out on it, or someone who’s writing a report will notice that they made a mistake or they did a botch. You can’t botch anything unless you expose the wrestling, the lie. If you ruin the illusion, that’s the only way you can make a mistake, otherwise there’s no way to do it. It’s not possible, because you can you make and create everything you want to make and create, and you’re only limited by your own imagination and creativity, as long as it’s within the context of a competition. As long as you’re trying to still win and not lose.”
Says talent worry too much about getting over:
“I think a lot of talent get caught up in that. Because if they don’t win or win on a consistent basis they feel like they’re being buried, that the audience will view them as something less than. When nothing could be further from the truth. When you go out there in the ring, whether you win or lose, It’s your opportunity to get yourself over, meaning to connect with that audience and make them want to see you again. And, you know, you don’t have to go over, meaning to win, to get over. You know there are plenty of people that you know if you a good example would be Tommy Dreamer and ECW you know, he didn’t win a match, the whole time he was in ECW until there at the end, and he fought not wanting to win it but he didn’t want to win the ECW title and screw up his track record, But he was massively over in ECW as the you know, as Tommy Dreamer and that just goes to prove that you don’t have to necessarily win. You don’t have to go over to get over.”
Names his favorite people to work with:
“It is hard, because there’s so many. Bob Holly was always fun, you know, very physical. Chris Candido. Chris Benoit. You know, there were there were older ones that you that you guys wouldn’t know. You know, there was Doug Williams, Christian from Edge & Christian. We called it like a night off with a lot of those guys because they’re so easy and effortless. Then there are other guys it’s like pulling teeth because it’s just painful and it’s just a mourning process you know where you just can’t you know jive. Regal, I used to love to work with Regal, that was so easy. I got one time with Fit Finlay and we didn’t speak before we didn’t speak in the ring but it was awesome. You know, we had the wrestlers in the back come out watching because they were buying in to it. A name very, very rarely brought up you know is Brad Armstrong. George South, what an incredibly talented man, that guy is so under appreciated as an actual worker.”
(H/T and transcribed by 411 Mania)
