Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on May 7, 2014 20:40:52 GMT -6
www.clothesline.eu/interviews/exclusive-interview-with-joe-e-legend-part-3-edge-christian-and-the-work-in-the-ring
In the third part of our extensive interview, Canadian pro-wrestler Joe E. Legend talks about his friends Edge and Christian, tells us what good wrestling is to him and how to work in the ring. Clothesline.EU editor Maik Hanke asked the questions on the phone.
Please be sure to check the other parts of the interview: Part 1 & Part 2 on health related issues.
What is good wrestling to you?
Good wrestling is a good story with interesting characters. It’s not just a series of big bumps. My philosophy is that people will never buy a t-shirt that says ‘hip toss’ or ‘moonsault’. They buy a t-shirt of a character who does the moonsault or the character who does the shooting star press. Character comes first. And when you have compelling characters in an interesting story then the match happens. That’s the icing on the cake. If you ever got to see the original ECW, the Raven vs. Sandman story – that was so brilliant. It was so compelling television. But their matches were nothing to do with technical. You weren’t going to see any moonsaults from Raven and Sandman. They beat the crap out of each other with sticks. But the stories were so compelling that the matches were brought up from it. To me, that’s brilliant wrestling, drawing you in emotionally. And not just ‘Wow, yeah, big move’.
Is that what you would call wrestling psychology?
Absolutely! That’s drawing you in emotionally. That’s getting an emotional connection. That’s getting inside your mind.
Do you have to tell a story every time?
You try to. I mean, Goldberg’s matches were so short, and it was almost impossible to tell a story other than ‘He’s indestructible, he’s gonna win’. But truthfully, most matches should tell a story, most matches should have a story beyond just ‘This guy is gonna do this move and that guy is gonna do that move’. If you have a strong back story, then your match matters more. If you look at the first Rocky film – and Rocky to me is the analogy of everything in wrestling –, if you just watch the fight at the end of Rocky I: You have this goofy looking white guy to come to the ring, and then you see Apollo Creed, who looks like a panther, he looks like an absolute killer, a fantastic athlete. Watching only the fight you say ‘Apollo, just kill this guy’. But if you see the back story of Rocky‘s build up to the fight, you want to see Rocky beat up Apollo. The back story was everything to make the fight matter, to make the fight more interesting. Wrestling has that same effect.
Is that still contemporary?
Yeah. I think Austin vs. McMahon means nothing without you knowing that Vince McMahon is the corporate suit who kept Austin down and Austin was a blue-collared beer drinking, swearing, finger giving hero fighting the corporate bad guy. If it was just him versus Vince, that’s Austin in his 30s fighting this old guy in his late 50s who’s not a fighter. Why would I buy a ticket for that? But the story behind it, McMahon holding Austin down and ‘You’re going to follow suit, and I’m the executive and you’re a bum’, and then Austin says ‘Kiss my ass, I don’t care if you’re an executive, I represent the people.’ That made all the difference. Austin was a great wrestler all the time he was in the business. It was the storylines that put him on top that made a cultural phenomenon.
What do you think, can anybody be a top guy if there’s the right story and the right gimmick?
No!
So the wrestler needs something to connect the gimmick to the audience?
Yeah, there’s the indefinable thing. There are some guys who simply connect with an audience and you can’t really teach it. And then, there is some people that the audience just can’t pay attention to. If you look at Edge and Christian: With Christian, when he walks in a room you kind of go ‘Hey, Jay, how are you?’ He’s phenomenal, he is one of the best in the industry – period. Without a question he is one of the best. But without saying a word, Edge can walk into a room and you have to turn and look. He just got a certain star quality. Christian’s work rate is what brings him up – Edge’s work rate wasn’t bad but Edge has a certain star quality that had people look immediately and that’s why he got pushed first I think. Whereas Christian just has his history, his continuity of having great matches, and everybody wanted to work with him. And eventually, he won the respect of his peers. The opposing, they looked at Adam and said ‘We got to push this guy’. It took Jay a little bit longer, even though Jay, I think, might be better. It took longer for the office to recognize how great Jay is, whereas Adam, they wanted him to be great.
Is there a reason why Christian is such an internet darling and why WWE did not push him earlier although he was such an internet darling?
I don’t want to say they hate the internet but they want to control the internet the way they control everything else. They don’t want to be told what to do by the fan base. They kind of have this elite philosophy like ‘We’ll tell you what’s working and who is going to be the champ’. When Christian was starting to get all the internet buzz, they were like ‘No, they are not telling us who to push – we tell them who stars!’ Christian has always been awesome, everybody loves working with him but also, Christian has this great sense of humor. Christian is a funny guy. He and I were texting each other recently for a while and I was just laughing my head off, sitting in my car by myself looking like a fool laughing.
Do you have any stories?
Just some old inside jokes and some silly stuff. The thing is that Christian has such a good sense of humor that I think sometimes backstage he is so busy telling jokes that sometimes they go like ‘We can’t take this guy seriously because we are too busy laughing with him.’ And it took him turning villain and being serious for a while on camera for the office to take him as a serious performer. Because he is such a funny guy he gets into their minds ‘Oh, he’s funny, so he’ll be – haha’ – but ‘haha’ rarely sells main event tickets. Even though I don’t think there’s anything that Christian couldn’t do that wouldn’t be excellent in the business.
In the third part of our extensive interview, Canadian pro-wrestler Joe E. Legend talks about his friends Edge and Christian, tells us what good wrestling is to him and how to work in the ring. Clothesline.EU editor Maik Hanke asked the questions on the phone.
Please be sure to check the other parts of the interview: Part 1 & Part 2 on health related issues.
What is good wrestling to you?
Good wrestling is a good story with interesting characters. It’s not just a series of big bumps. My philosophy is that people will never buy a t-shirt that says ‘hip toss’ or ‘moonsault’. They buy a t-shirt of a character who does the moonsault or the character who does the shooting star press. Character comes first. And when you have compelling characters in an interesting story then the match happens. That’s the icing on the cake. If you ever got to see the original ECW, the Raven vs. Sandman story – that was so brilliant. It was so compelling television. But their matches were nothing to do with technical. You weren’t going to see any moonsaults from Raven and Sandman. They beat the crap out of each other with sticks. But the stories were so compelling that the matches were brought up from it. To me, that’s brilliant wrestling, drawing you in emotionally. And not just ‘Wow, yeah, big move’.
Is that what you would call wrestling psychology?
Absolutely! That’s drawing you in emotionally. That’s getting an emotional connection. That’s getting inside your mind.
Do you have to tell a story every time?
You try to. I mean, Goldberg’s matches were so short, and it was almost impossible to tell a story other than ‘He’s indestructible, he’s gonna win’. But truthfully, most matches should tell a story, most matches should have a story beyond just ‘This guy is gonna do this move and that guy is gonna do that move’. If you have a strong back story, then your match matters more. If you look at the first Rocky film – and Rocky to me is the analogy of everything in wrestling –, if you just watch the fight at the end of Rocky I: You have this goofy looking white guy to come to the ring, and then you see Apollo Creed, who looks like a panther, he looks like an absolute killer, a fantastic athlete. Watching only the fight you say ‘Apollo, just kill this guy’. But if you see the back story of Rocky‘s build up to the fight, you want to see Rocky beat up Apollo. The back story was everything to make the fight matter, to make the fight more interesting. Wrestling has that same effect.
Is that still contemporary?
Yeah. I think Austin vs. McMahon means nothing without you knowing that Vince McMahon is the corporate suit who kept Austin down and Austin was a blue-collared beer drinking, swearing, finger giving hero fighting the corporate bad guy. If it was just him versus Vince, that’s Austin in his 30s fighting this old guy in his late 50s who’s not a fighter. Why would I buy a ticket for that? But the story behind it, McMahon holding Austin down and ‘You’re going to follow suit, and I’m the executive and you’re a bum’, and then Austin says ‘Kiss my ass, I don’t care if you’re an executive, I represent the people.’ That made all the difference. Austin was a great wrestler all the time he was in the business. It was the storylines that put him on top that made a cultural phenomenon.
What do you think, can anybody be a top guy if there’s the right story and the right gimmick?
No!
So the wrestler needs something to connect the gimmick to the audience?
Yeah, there’s the indefinable thing. There are some guys who simply connect with an audience and you can’t really teach it. And then, there is some people that the audience just can’t pay attention to. If you look at Edge and Christian: With Christian, when he walks in a room you kind of go ‘Hey, Jay, how are you?’ He’s phenomenal, he is one of the best in the industry – period. Without a question he is one of the best. But without saying a word, Edge can walk into a room and you have to turn and look. He just got a certain star quality. Christian’s work rate is what brings him up – Edge’s work rate wasn’t bad but Edge has a certain star quality that had people look immediately and that’s why he got pushed first I think. Whereas Christian just has his history, his continuity of having great matches, and everybody wanted to work with him. And eventually, he won the respect of his peers. The opposing, they looked at Adam and said ‘We got to push this guy’. It took Jay a little bit longer, even though Jay, I think, might be better. It took longer for the office to recognize how great Jay is, whereas Adam, they wanted him to be great.
Is there a reason why Christian is such an internet darling and why WWE did not push him earlier although he was such an internet darling?
I don’t want to say they hate the internet but they want to control the internet the way they control everything else. They don’t want to be told what to do by the fan base. They kind of have this elite philosophy like ‘We’ll tell you what’s working and who is going to be the champ’. When Christian was starting to get all the internet buzz, they were like ‘No, they are not telling us who to push – we tell them who stars!’ Christian has always been awesome, everybody loves working with him but also, Christian has this great sense of humor. Christian is a funny guy. He and I were texting each other recently for a while and I was just laughing my head off, sitting in my car by myself looking like a fool laughing.
Do you have any stories?
Just some old inside jokes and some silly stuff. The thing is that Christian has such a good sense of humor that I think sometimes backstage he is so busy telling jokes that sometimes they go like ‘We can’t take this guy seriously because we are too busy laughing with him.’ And it took him turning villain and being serious for a while on camera for the office to take him as a serious performer. Because he is such a funny guy he gets into their minds ‘Oh, he’s funny, so he’ll be – haha’ – but ‘haha’ rarely sells main event tickets. Even though I don’t think there’s anything that Christian couldn’t do that wouldn’t be excellent in the business.