LWO member Joaquin Wilde recently spoke with Out of Character with Ryan Satin for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling. During the discussion, Wilde commented on the life-threatening injury he suffered in Mexico years ago:
“It’s unbelievable. I think sometimes like, because it wasn’t just that this injury happened and it should have ended my career, it should have been in my life. I remember speaking to a gastroenterologist two months after the injury happened. When he looked at my X-rays and told him my story and whatnot, he looked at me and said, ‘I feel like I’m talking to a ghost right now. You should be dead.’ I just thought to myself, like, ‘Why was I given this second chance? Why was I spared? Why am I still able to wrestle? Why am I still alive?’, and I just always thought it’s because there must be something left for me to achieve in this business, and yeah, I guess WWE was that thing, and here we are. I’m so glad that it all worked out.”
Feeling it’s better he is in WWE now than when he was younger:
“I’m glad that I’m having this experience at WWE at this point in my life because if this happened when I was in my 20s, I probably would have screwed it up, gotten fired, done something stupid, like I just wasn’t mature enough now that I look back on it. As much as I wanted it to happen back then, it’s like, I really wasn’t ready mentally. I’m so glad that I did get the opportunity eventually and that it happened at a time in my life where I am more mature and better prepared for such an opportunity.”
Creating the original Ring of Honor logo:
“Ring of Honor, they put up a thing on the internet saying like, ‘Design the Ring of Honor logo and win five free wrestling tapes.’ Back in those days, this was when tape trading, VHS tapes, were a thing. I was very much a tape trader when I was a teenager. I’m like, ‘Five free tapes. That’s $100 worth of tapes and they’re masters. I can trade these masters for like two or three dubs each. I can get a lot of tapes for this.'”
“My brother was interested in graphic design at a super young age. I was 14 or 15 when this Ring of Honor thing happened, so my brother would have been 12 or 13. He had already purchased Photoshop for himself at age 12. He spent his birthday money on Photoshop. We’re talking 2001. It’s just so strange. It’s like, what 12-year-old takes their birthday money and buys Photoshop? It’s funny because that’s his humble beginnings. Now my brother is a graphic designer for the NBA. He has big clients. He just did something for Future, the rapper. He’s doing big stuff now, but his start was, yeah, age 12, Photoshop, just playing around making graphics.”
“So when the Ring of Honor opportunity happened, I went to my brother and I said, ‘You have to make this logo. We got to win these tapes.’ So my brother made a logo. Then just to give myself another chance at winning, I was like, alright, I’m gonna make one too.’ I was not as good at Photoshop as he was, but I was okay. So I made the logo. I came up with a little slogan, ‘We don’t imitate, we innovate.’ We sent both logos to the contest, and would you believe it? I won. The one time that I beat my brother in some artistic endeavor, I got the five free tapes and then I got free tickets to any Ring of Honor show that I wanted.”
You can check out the complete interview below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
