Pro-wrestling star and current IMPACT commentator Matt Rehwoldt recently joined D-Von Dudley’s Table Talk podcast to discuss a wide range of topics, including his thoughts on the Vaudevillains tag team in WWE, and how he feels about his chemistry with Tom Hannifan at the commentary table. Highlights from the interview are below.
On his chemistry with Tom Hannifan at the commentary table:
I’m working with another former WWE commentator Tom Hannifan, formerly Tom Phillips who’s fantastic. He was one of my mentors which pisses me off because he’s — I keep forgetting he’s younger than me, but like, he was kind of like my boss at WWE because he was like Michael Cole’s number two. He was kind of my boss for a while and he’s so smart and he’s so good and he taught me so much so you end up having that student-teacher relationship where in your head, ‘This guy’s older than me,’ blah, blah, blah and the guy’s like two years younger than me and so it always makes me mad [Rehwoldt joked]. But no, I get to work with him and he’s so good and he has that role down, he’s such a great play-by-play guy. We have a lot of freedom to operate and I think we bring — it’s nice because I think we bring not only chemistry because we know each other, we’ve worked with each other before. But also, I think for that show, as much as people might rag on WWE sometimes, they get some things right and you know, they’re a very huge, successful company because they get certain key things right and one of the things they’ve done pretty well I think is the commentary. Michael Cole runs a pretty good ship and he gave great tips and everything to guys like Vic [Joseph], guys like Tom who have passed those on to me and so, I think we bring the best of that WWE style, the things — the notes that they hit, the story points to hit; ‘Don’t talk too much. Speak in soundbites,’ things like that. But then we’re also given more freedom of the silly things you’ve heard about. Words, there’s really no off-limit words we can’t say or it’s a little less restrictive on things like that so, we are allowed to bring that kind of freedom.
Looks back on the Vaudevillains tag team with Simon Gotch:
That’s a tough question [when did he & Simon Gotch feel comfortable on WWE’s main roster]. I mean it’s like… because there’s part of me that’s like, hey, never get comfortable, but that’s a different kind of definition of ‘comfortable’. But when we kind of got used to things, I would say probably by — it took a couple months but by the end of that — we came up in April — by the end of that summer, doing the house shows, did a couple of tours, I remember we did a Japan tour, did a Europe tour. Again, getting our riding buddies, establishing those relationships, who you’re sharing hotels with, who you’re sharing cars with, you know, what’s your gym routine, getting those down. So yeah, took a couple months but after that, I think it was even better once… not saying anything personally but once we ended up splitting off like a year later, I found my groove a lot more after that once I was on my own. I will say that.
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling)