Pro-wrestling star and regular AEW competitor Baron Black recently spoke with Andrew Thompson about training Shaq at the Nightmare Factory ahead of his AEW debut, and how impactful Cody Rhodes was to Black’s career. Highlights, including the full video interview, can be found below.
Training Shaq ahead of his AEW debut match, Baron recounts Shaq’s reaction after taking his first bump:
If I can say a funny story and Shaq would come in and train at the Nightmare Factory and I would just be a helping hand and I remember Shaq actually hitting the mat for the first time and he looked over, looked dead in our face and said, ‘Damn. This is what it feels like every time?’ So it’s like man, that was probably the most dominant man in sports at one point in time and he felt that sh*t, you know what I mean? So it’s like, ‘Yeah brother. It feels like that every time.’
On the positive impact Cody Rhodes has had on his career:
He [Cody Rhodes] has had nothing but a positive impact [on my career]. I know Cody has become this polarizing figure and you know, on social media, it’s kind of cool to hate on Cody, for whatever reason they come up with but you know, it’s only been positive with my experience with him, you know? I’ve been able to learn a lot from him from being around him so often, you know what I mean? He has his Nightmare Family camps that he’s the head of, he trains and being able to see how he trains individuals. You know, he got all that tenured experience from being with a television company ever since he became an adult, or even before an adult, being around wrestling at that level and then being around a major television company like that and having all that experience. He just has all that wealth and knowledge that any up and coming talent like myself would desperately want to know and desperately need and learning off his experience and all this stuff he can teach so, I learned a lot from him [by] just being around him. Helping him out with training at the Nightmare Factory camp and eventually we became, you know, we became a little cool and then we did the stuff on Sammy [Guevara’s] Vlog, the ‘Friend Olympics’ thing that a lot of fans loved so much and you know, you get to see the other side of Cody which is… I call it the silly side. The silly side, the man loves to have fun and I think that’s pretty obvious with people who even watch Rhodes to the Top. The man, he’s serious about wrestling, he’s dedicated about wrestling and he lives and breathes it but he also understands that wrestling should be fun, and all the crazy antics he does; he’s done with Fuego [Del Sol], me, KiLynn [King] and do all the Friends Olympics stuff, it’s like it was a real good experience man. It was a real good experience and it’s been nothing but a positive thing for me and you know, he even made me an honorary member of Nightmare Family so, yeah. So, he’s done a lot and I thank him for everything he has done and I’ll always be appreciative of all that.
(Thanks to Andrew Thompson for sending over the quotes)