IMPACT world champion Moose recently spoke with WrestleZone about a wide range of topics, including his thoughts on WWE’s new NIL program, and how proud he is of everything he’s accomplished in pro-wrestling following his career in the NFL. Highlights are below.
Says he’s prideful of everything he has achieved and hopes to bury the stigma that ex-football players can’t wrestle:
Yeah, I’m prideful about that because I feel disrespected when people say ‘he’s an ex-football player who’s now wrestling.’ I just feel like that’s a bad — it’s kinda being labeled as not being good enough. So I kinda wanted to be like, ‘Oh he’s a professional wrestler who once was a football player.’ I think that’s more what I’m looking for and I think I’ve switched that stigma because you usually generally don’t get a lot of football guys that come in and accomplish some of the stuff that I’ve done or is good as I am.
How hard he has been working:
That takes hard work. That takes dedication, that takes working on your craft daily, watching a lot of film. I’ve done the work, and now I’m getting those praises or the rewards, you could say. The advice I would give to some of the guys who are trying to do what I’ve done is just be patient and put in the work and like I know you guys can and I mean hopefully the same thing happens to you guys.
Explains why he has some doubts for WWE’s new NIL program because he’s not sure if the candidates are fans of wrestling:
I don’t know if that thing with WWE is gonna work because I’m a firm believer that to be good in wrestling, the first thing you have to have is passion for wrestling. I haven’t heard anything about [WWE’s Next In Line program]. I don’t follow much what other companies do, but to answer your question, I don’t know if any of the guys who they just picked up are wrestling fans. Because if they’re not wrestling fans, then you get into the same problem that I’m talking about where once the hard work kicks in, if you’re not a wrestling fan, you’re not gonna wanna stick around. It’s one of those things, I’ve been a wrestling fan since I was eight or ten years old, so once the hard work started, I knew this was something I wanted to do because I fell in love with wrestling at a young age. Now with these guys that they just signed, are they in love with wrestling? Are they fans of wrestling? Only they would know the answer to that.