TNA star Moose recently spoke with Chris Van Vliet for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling. During the discussion, Moose commented on TNA being back:
“Great. It is something that within the boys that we’ve always talked about and we’ve always said to each other, like, ‘What if TNA came back and we weren’t Impact Wrestling anymore? We were just TNA.’ I didn’t know personally. They never told me anything. I’m the last person that finds out about anything that’s going on. I remember the night. I think Josh was in the main event. Everybody was like, ‘Make sure you watch the monitors after the match.’ In my head, I was like, ‘What’s going on? Is CM Punk coming in’, because he was a free agent. ‘Is CM Punk coming in? No way’, like, well, I’m going to watch the monitor and then the match is over and the reveal happens and there was a reaction video and you can see me jump up, get on the chair, and start chanting, ‘TNA, TNA TNA’ with the rest of the boys. I think that was probably the most epic part of last year for us.”
Why he feels it’s important to sell in a match:
“There are two things to this. First, when I first got into wrestling, 10-11 years ago, I was in a company called Ring of Honor and I met a guy called Chris Hero. One thing Chris Hero told me that always stuck with me, he told me, ‘You’re not going to be determined on how good you are about the things you do offensively, we’re gonna determine how good you are by how you sell’ and that always stuck with me. Another thing, part two, one of my favorite wrestlers to this day is Brock Lesnar. The reason why he’s my favorite wrestler is because yes, he’s a monster, he’s a beast, he kills people, but that’s not why I like him. He’s, in my opinion, the best seller in pro wrestling. I’ve literally watched a match with him versus Ric Flair, 60-year-old Ric Flair, and in that match, I literally thought the 60-year-old man was going to beat this beast and all due to this beast selling. Just watching that, I knew, Okay, whenever I get to this spot, I have to do a good enough job as he’s doing or a better job than him to be successful and be good at this. Every time I go to a match if a guy tells me, ‘Oh, I’m working the body part’ I know the whole night my goal is for them in the headpiece to get the ref to ask them, ‘Is he really okay or is he selling.’ That’s my goal is to get them to ask me that.”
Re-signing with TNA:
“There were a few things. Number one, I’m a very loyal person. My relationship with Scott D’Amore, honestly, I wouldn’t be in the position I am today if I never met Scott 10-plus years ago. So it’s hard for me to ever say no to him when we’re discussing numbers and what my future would be. First of all, I played in the NFL for seven-plus years. I’ve made a ton of money doing that. I was good with my money. You hear bad stories. Luckily for me, fortunately for me, I did good. I saved a good bit. So money has never been something that rained heavily over my head like, ‘Oh, I need money’, but I’ll stick to Scott for right now for the first reason. My relationship with Scott, playing in the NFL for so long and knowing that that business can be so cutthroat and they can really let you go in any second, but my relationship with Scott is more than just a boss-talent relationship. It’s almost like a big brother, little brother. So he’s had to be my coach, be my friend, and be my boss. So now I had to think about that. If I go to AEW, I don’t have a relationship with Tony. So he’s literally just my boss. If I go to WWE, I don’t have a relationship with Hunter. He’s really just my boss. So some of the situations I could potentially be in are just a boss-talent conversation, where here in TNA is a friend first, a friend-friend conversation, a big brother, little brother conversation, and then there’s a boss-talent conversation. So I had to throw that in. That was a big decision-maker for me.”
“Number two, because I’ve made money playing over seven years in the NFL, money wasn’t a huge burden for me where I needed money, so going to AEW or going to WWE, the money wasn’t attractive because I’ve made that. The guys who know me will tell you, everybody loves me, because my goal is to make everybody love me, but some people hate dealing with me because my greatest gift is also my greatest curse. I take wrestling so seriously that if I’m gonna go somewhere, I know how good I am as a wrestler. I know that in my humble opinion, I’m one of a kind. I know what I could do in the ring. I know how I look physically. I know that I could talk on the mic. So if I’m not in a spot that I deserve I should be, money is not attractive to me to get me to be happy with where I’m at. I want to play. I don’t want this much money to be on the bench. I want to be on the field. So I had to think about that. At that point, I don’t know if I was confident enough to make that jump and be the starter. Wrestling is one of those things that it doesn’t matter how talented you are, it matters how somebody perceives you. So your control is out of your hands.”
If he would want to retire in TNA:
“I can’t answer that question because I can’t tell the future. I can’t tell you if I’m even going to wake up tomorrow, so I can’t speak for that, but I will say this. I’m not one of those guys that you see that wants to wrestle until he’s 60 or 50 years old. That’s never been my goal. I want to be able to leave wrestling young and still be able to run around and play with my kid, be active, and do fun things. So I can’t tell you that I’m going to retire in TNA, but I do know for a fact that I’m not one of those guys that’s gonna wrestle until he’s 50 years old. I turn 40 this year. It all depends on how I feel physically, if I still have confidence in my abilities, to still perform the way I perform now, and if I feel like there’s any dip in that down the road, then I’ll hang it up.”
His TNA Mount Rushmore:
“That’s easy. That’s very easy. AJ Styles, Jeff Jarrett, Abyss and Kurt Angle.”
You can check out the complete interview below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
