WWE star Elias was the latest guest on Lilian Garcia’s Chasing Glory podcast to discuss all things pro-wrestling, including how the Drifter used to be personally offended by older generation stars would take the spots from younger guys. Highlights are below.
Getting offended by older stars:
This is going to sound selfish, or something like it—but when these guys are around, guys like Undertaker, Kane, Shawn Michaels—when they would come back, I would get personally offended by that. The reason would be, I should either be in there with those guys and learning from them and they should be passing on the knowledge or they just should not be there because it’s a new guy’s time, and that’s how I felt. I had a little bit of anger towards that generation or whatever it may be.
Explains his reasoning, but admits he eventually let that anger go:
I’m thinking, ‘I’m getting the loudest reactions out there. I’m the new guy and I’m the young guy. Here come these guys and they take spots at WrestleMania. They take spots at big pay-per-views. Elias is shoved to the side for whatever reason.’ I had, like, an anger about that. I thought, ‘Can they not just help out or step aside, whatever it may be.’ Then I saw [The Last Ride documentary series] and you come to find out how he’s aware of that as well. He knows the young guys want his spot. He also knows that he has to let this go at some time and he has been through the ringer, his body has been through it. He just loves the business so much and you can relate to that. I was like, ‘Let me put myself in this situation and get paid incredibly well.’ [He’s] one of the best of all time. The fans absolutely go insane for the guy. You can only get—it softens me to go, ‘Oh, I get it’ and I don’t have that anger that I did have before.
Full interview can be found here. (H/T and transcribed by WrestleZone)