MVP recently appeared on Corey Graves’ “After The Bell” podcast for an interview covering all things pro wrestling. During the discussion, MVP revealed that the match at WrestleMania 39 he is looking forward to seeing the most is Bianca Belair vs Asuka:
“The match that I am most looking forward to is Bianca versus Asuka, the EST versus the Empress. As a fan, as a practitioner of the craft, this match intrigues me more than virtually any other on the card because I see two women who are incredible athletes who have devoted themselves to the craft, Asuka, more than Bianca because she came along earlier. But if you look at their pedigrees to the business, and Asuka, we won’t even have to look at what she’s accomplished before coming to the WWE, but if you look at her accomplishments at the Performance Center at NXT, all the way to WWE, Asuka and Bianca are very similar. They both set the bar extremely high in NXT becoming champions there, coming up to the main roster, and then doing it again having impressive championship runs. They’re both incredibly talented, incredibly intelligent, and I am stoked to see how these women match up.”
Meeting Austin Theory before Theory started wrestling:
“Several years ago, I forgot exactly what, five or six years ago, maybe a little longer? I forget exactly when, but I was in McDonough, Georgia. I was visiting with a good friend of ours, David Bautista. He was there shooting Guardians of the Galaxy and I was hanging out with him. We went to the gym where we were training. This good looking fit teenage kid comes up to me and says, ‘Hey, your MVP, right?’ ‘Yeah, yeah.’ He goes, ‘Hey man, I just wanted to tell you I’m a wrestling fan and I started training at a wrestling school and I’m going to be like you. I’m going to do what you did. I’m gonna go wrestle for the WWE.’ I looked at him like, ‘You know, you’re a good looking kid. You look fit. You’ve been hitting the weights, obviously. Whatever you’ve been doing, keep doing it. Train hard, dedicate yourself, and one day, you could very well be there.”
“Fast forward. He comes up to me after he’s already made it to the main roster. He comes up and says, ‘Hey man. We met a long time ago.’ At this point, I’d already kind of taken a liking to him and he reminded me of that meeting at the Gold’s Gym in McDonough, Georgia. I actually remember because that moment, he explained, and I was like ‘Yeah, I remember that.’ He said, ‘Yeah, you were training with Dave Bautista.’ I said, ‘You were the kid that came up to me when I was at the desk getting a smoothie. I remember that.’ So we had that meeting then, and all these years later, he’s standing in front of me telling me, ‘Remember when I told you I would be here?’ ‘Yeah, I do remember that.’”
“So having said that, my respect for Austin Theory’s drive, his devotion, his dedication, is immeasurable. His aptitude is off the charts. You tell him something one time, and you see the correction apply.”
“When he told me that his idol was John Cena, part of me wanted to barf because Mr. good guy, everything is awesome. You never give up. Yeah, whatever. I was always a Piper fan. I don’t care about your vitamins and saying prayers, Just get the job done, you know? But when I saw that he was going to be able to face his favorite wrestler, his hero, the guy that he looked up to on the grandest stage of them all, I was thrilled for him, happy for him, and and I’m even happier for him.
“That confrontation that he had with John Cena, I was mildly disappointed in Theory for just a moment because he didn’t respond to Cena the way I thought he should have. I thought he should have punched Cena right in his mouth and shown Cena, believe that. But what Cena obviously doesn’t know is that Theory is that kid who walked up to me in McDonough, Georgia and said, ‘I’m going to be in the WWE.’ So obviously Cena doesn’t know that kid. He believed in himself enough to go from a gym to the grandest stage of them all to face one of the greatest stars, if not, some would say, the greatest star that WWE has ever produced. Theory told me that Cena was going to regret that promo, that he was going to eat those words, and he told me that he was going to beat John Cena at WrestleMania. After talking to that kid, that 16 or 17 year old kid in McDonough, and seeing what that kid has accomplished, John Cena is going to lose to that kid at WrestleMania.”
You can check out the complete podcast below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
