Former ROH television champion Tony Deppen recently joined Ringsiders Wrestling for an in-depth interview about a number of different topics, including his run alongside Violence Unlimited in ROH, and how he felt about his GCW title match against the current reigning champion of the brand, Jon Moxley. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
Says wrestling with ROH was the most fun he’s ever had, and how Brody King did his best to get Deppen signed:
It was probably the most fun I’ve ever had wrestling [being a part of Violence Unlimited in Ring of Honor] to be honest because me, [Chris] Dickinson, Brody [King] and Homicide, we just spit-balled things, we did things the way we wanted to do it. Sadly, you know, Ring of Honor’s demise. I heard there was some rumors about doing that at New Japan, like or two events with it but, nobody’s really said anything to me other than the match that I had with Minoru Suzuki. I thought that was originally gonna be that date because somebody told me that and then randomly, they just put it on me. ‘Okay, it’s you and Minoru Suzuki.’ I was like, ‘Okay.’ So, but it would be nice to see — because we were gonna do so much more. Sadly that wasn’t the case and Brody is somebody who I have a lot of respect for because he’s always sticking his neck out for me. When I got to Ring of Honor, he made sure — he’s like, ‘Tony –’ I didn’t get signed but like, during the time when they’re still getting ready to sign people, he was like, I’m gonna make sure you get signed.’ He’s like, ‘Because if not, I’ll just tell them I’m not gonna renew my contract. It’s as simple as that.’
On his GCW title match against Jon Moxley:
Well it was really cool because I remember going to Tournament of Death. I think it was 2009, Jon Moxley was in it and at the time I wasn’t a big fan of his. But my friends had never heard of him but he’s from death match wrestling. He’s like, ‘Who is this guy?’ I was like, ‘Jon Moxley.’ I was like, ‘Give him a few years.’ I’m like, ‘He’s probably gonna be the biggest star in wrestling, guarantee you that.’ Well I was right, you know? And then fast forward 13 years later, I’m wrestling a match with him which was insane to me because it’s somebody I grew up watching basically and he’s one of the top guys in wrestling currently so, the opportunity to learn from him was pretty surreal and the match was probably, honestly the most physical match I’ve ever had in my entire life… I have a nice black eye from it… I was still feeling it for about two days afterwards. I feel like if I won that belt, it would have been a really good pop the crowd and then, maybe people wouldn’t have cared as much and I feel like that would, I don’t know, maybe hurt me a little bit? I think people wanted to see me win it just because Moxley’s had it for so long.
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling)