Trevor Murdoch made an appearance on Battleground Podcast to discuss a wide range of topics.
During it, the current NWA Champion spoke about the differences between his career after departing from WWE in 2008 and today as well as challenging Brent Albright for the NWA Title in 2008.
“When I had that match with Brent Albright, I had just left WWE. My career was in semi-turmoil. There were a lot of questions of where am I going and what am I going to do. There were a lot of uncertainties, and a huge lack of confidence. At that time, WWE was really the only show in town. Everybody, even the fans, were conditioned that if you were not part of WWE, you aren’t really a wrestler. I wrestled for eight years before I went to WWE and every single question from the fans was, ‘Have you wrestled for WWE?’
At that time, I couldn’t say that. Once you are able to say that, it’s great, but when your not there anymore, well sh*t, there’s nowhere to go but down in that position. Actually my first show after I left WWE, an old promoter had contacted me. Out of respect, I knew the guy would take care of this. I said, ‘Yea, of course.’ I didn’t ask the detailed questions that I should have because I had just come out of a company that took care of everything for you. All you had to do was show up. The crowds were there and everything. What I didn’t know was the show was at a bowling alley and outside in a parking lot. There were blue tarps for walls to try to block people from driving by and watching the show in the parking lot of this bowling alley. My locker room was the bathroom of the bowling alley that I shared with other people that were bowling at the time as well.
It was just that my confidence was shot. I was like, ‘Holy sh*t. Three weeks ago I was wrestling in front of an average of 7-10,000 people, and now I’m in the parking lot of a bowling alley in Indiana. I had zero confidence. When Dave Marquez called me and asked me, ‘Hey listen. I have an opportunity for you’, I didn’t really take full advantage of it. I wasn’t mentally in the right spot. I didn’t want it as bad as I should have. It was an accumulation of things, whereas now, I wasn’t just thrown to the wolves in NWA, whereas a lot of companies I have. I bring a name value. When I went to TNA, they threw me into their top guys and I had to make everybody else look good. Whereas in NWA, I’ve had to wrestle some really tough opponents and they’ve given me opportunities to elevate myself. They’ve also not put a leash on me. It’s common for a lot of pro wrestling companies for them to micromanage you and tell you what not to do and tell you what to do. I’ve been doing this for 22 years. I have a lot of experience. I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but toot, toot, toot. I know what I’m doing in there. I know myself better than anybody else. I know what I can and can’t do. I just needed a platform and I needed a boss that trusted me and respected me enough to go, ‘All right. This is the direction that I’d like you to go. Go make magic.’”
H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription