The latest guests on Renee Paquette’s The Sessions podcast was former NXT and Raw tag team champions Akam and Rezar, better known as the Authors of Pain. The duo discuss a wide range of topics, including their thoughts on being paired with the legendary Paul Ellering during their run in NXT. Highlights from the interview are below.
Akam talks Paul Ellering becoming AoP’s manager in NXT:
“We didn’t actually know that we were getting Paul Ellering as a manager, honestly. We didn’t know we were debuting because we’d only had like four or five matches together on house shows all around Florida up there with NXT. Then randomly before, I think it was TakeOver: The End, and it was The Revival, at the time, and American Alpha, I believe they had a match, and then we came in after. Literally that morning, we got a text from Matt Blom that said, ‘Hey, meet us at the Performance Center at 10 a.m.’ We go there and it’s empty. Bloom goes, ‘Get in the ring and just roll around.’ Then, we see Paul walk out and he’s watching us with William Regal together and what was happening was he wanted to see us before he got put together with us. Right away, he said, ‘Yeah, I’ll do this.’ When we debuted, Paul came out and it was just something so big because he had a lot of offers to manage other tag teams and he turned them all down because he didn’t feel they fit and because he has a huge legacy, obviously to keep up.”
Rezar adds that they were not told about Ellering before their debut:
“They actually never really told us before our debut, that Paul would come out, they left the option to Paul Ellering. Because from our knowledge, he already had declined a lot of people before us. That’s what they told us and that’s what Paul, later on, told us as well.”
Akam says they still speak with Ellering on a weekly basis:
“Honestly, us and Paul talk on a weekly basis still. I always pick his brain about stocks and different stuff and just his crazy workouts, he does still does crazy workouts. I’ve had the honor of trying to introduce him to the metaverse and it’s the best thing ever because he had no clue. I call him every other day and I’d be like, ‘Hey, Paul. So this is what…’ [Paul responds] ’Oh, that’s great.’ He loves us to the point where — unconditional support. The whole time we’re waiting, [Paul would say] ‘We got to get back wrestling, boys.’ Then I introduced him to the metaverse and Paul goes, ’Oh, that’s great, different. Let’s do it.’”
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)