Erick Rowan, a member of The Wyatt Sicks faction currently featured on WWE programming, and the surviving member of the original Wyatt Family from WWE’s past featuring the late Bray Wyatt and Luke Harper, has been around for a long time.
He’s seen it all, and done it all.
During a recent in-depth interview with CardPlayer.com, the WWE veteran spoke about a memorable Chinese WWE event with Harper, how The Wyatt Sicks are like a new family for him, how he wants to take his career the same path that WWE Hall of Fame legend Kane did with his and more.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview sent to us by the Card Player website where he touches on these topics with his thoughts.
Bray Was The Peacemaker Of Our Group, Luke Was The Navigator
Looking back on time spent with Bray Wyatt and Luke Harper, Erick Rowan revealed how he learned so much from both of them;
Erick Rowan: “I was the driver and John (Luke Harper) was the navigator, and I like to think of Windham (Bray Wyatt) as the peacemaker. I feel like we all kind of learned a little bit from each other. Windham was such a master storyteller with the way he would tell stories and the way he would get into his promos, you’d really feel what he was saying. I’m eternally grateful for that stuff and you don’t think about it at the time, but these are things that you pick up. And then with John, I would watch the way he would work seamlessly in the ring. It’s kind of hard to not get better around guys like that. Very hard.”
I Will NEVER Forget Chinese House Show With Luke Harper
Asked about one match during his career that he’ll never forget, Rowan opened up on a house show match with Luke Harper;
ER: “Probably because of my love for the man. It would probably be me and Luke Harper. Before we did the Bludgeon Brothers stuff, we got put together on house shows for a month or two where we’d have to work each other. He would always have this thing where he’d try to say that he wouldn’t blow up. I remember in those matches specifically, it was always my goal to make him exhausted. There was this one match in China that I remember on tour, he is just completely exhausted and he’s the one who’s won. And I used to always call him out of that and just laugh. So that’s one match that just sticks in my head. Just for the absurdity of the whole thing that we had going between us, that probably nobody knew! Just us.”
I’ve Been Able To Heal In The Ring During Emotional Times
Since the passing of Windham Rotunda and John Huber, Rowan says he has been able to heal ‘a little bit’ when inside a wrestling ring;
ER: “I definitely think I’ve healed a little bit because it’s forced me to confront a lot of stuff you can’t hide. There’ve been really emotional times, especially when stuff was just happening and I was on the indies and I wasn’t one to back out of commitments when bad things would happen, so I would honor my commitments and that definitely led to some very emotional days and even more emotional, because like usually it’d be the last match of the night you get on the microphone, we talk a little bit. And you can’t always hide your feelings when you got a live mic.”
The Wyatt Sicks Are Family To Me, We’ve Got Lots To Prove!
After recently returning to Smackdown, Rowan classes the Wyatt Sicks as family to him now and believes they are going to show the world what they can do;
ER: “You slowly start to open your eyes and look around and you got Nikki Cross, you got Dexter, you got Gacy, and then you got Taylor (Uncle Howdy) and you open your eyes and you’re like okay, this is a family too. They’ve become a family to me, and it makes it easier. Because I know the people that are no longer here would probably smile that were all rocking together.They’ve not had clear chances to showcase what their strengths really are in the company. And I think this is the chance for them to begin to show those strengths while honoring something that’s pretty big and close to my heart.”
Wrestling In Japan Has Helped Longevity Of My Career
After wrestling in Japan earlier on in his life, Rowan believes that experience has helped with the longevity of his career;
ER: “I think one thing it taught me was everything that I give people, I learned how to take, so I know how it feels. I think that was something that stuck with me. I was taking every move possible in training and part of that was finding out how a move felt if I was going to perform it on others. Then especially moving into the system later with the WWE, it teaches you real quick. Longevity in this career, you have to make it look like you’re hurting each other and you have to do it with as little damage to the other person as possible. And that’s a tough, tricky thing to do.”
I Hope To Go Down The Same Route As Kane
Rowan sees a bit of himself in pro wrestling legend Kane and hopes to go down the same route as him eventually, not just being the ‘quiet monster’;
ER: “I always saw Kane as a guy that had some longevity in his career and it wasn’t until the second half that people started being able to hear from him. So I always think that was kind of a funny parallel that I like to think maybe I’m kind of going down where I can develop into somebody that’s not just the quiet monster, but obviously as somebody that has a little bit more depth to what’s going on inside their head, I just need a chance to show it.”
Fans Don’t Understand How Hard Our Job Is, It Disheartens Me!
Speaking on fan reaction to wrestling, Rowan feels disheartened sometimes when he sees ‘mean spirited’ comments online;
ER: “I think sometimes, fans get caught up with what they think is good and bad. And I think that’s funny because wrestling is such a subjective thing, so some people may think something’s bad and then another person watches that same match and they love it. When you put that much time and effort into creating something, it’s kind of hard for people to fathom at home how much time and training people put into this. I just don’t get the mean-spirited stuff I see online sometimes. I think that’s kind of what makes me just a little disheartened with society.”
Acting Has Allowed Me To Grab My Emotions On A Dime
Outside of the ring, Rowan is an actor and he told us about how filming Ghost of the Ozarks allowed him to tap into different emotions like never before;
ER: “To me it’s like tapping into emotions that I feel like I’ve never had. One of these earlier roles I did was a small film called Ghost of the Ozarks. And in that film I had never experienced loss because this was while John (Huber) was still alive, so I hadn’t really experienced the loss and the character that I played, William, he experienced loss in the film. That was something that was very hard to tap into because I had never experienced it. That was very tough, but it was very rewarding because when it comes to acting, you can grab onto your emotions on a dime.”
Check out the complete interview at CardPlayer.com.
