Former WWE star Erick Rowan recently spoke with Steve Fall from NBC Sports for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling. Here are the highlights:
His WWE release:
“I wasn’t ready for my story to stop on that adventure. It’s been a couple of years. I’ve stepped my toes into other avenues of entertainment which I fell in love with. I’ve been lucky enough to do some bigger arena shows in AEW and get that taste of the crowd, but I haven’t had a story. I haven’t told a story of what’s happened to me since I’ve stepped away from wrestling. To me, I would love to tell that story on some sort of stage because I think it could be very interesting to see what’s happened to me. I love continuity in wrestling. The last time anybody saw me I had a pet spider that died, so I would like to talk about my years of recklessly wandering the earth finding reason and purpose for life without my precious spider.”
What was supposed to happen to the spider:
“Seth Rollins was the big babyface at the time and I was told it was going to be a pet rat, which is great because it tied into my last feud where I tried to kill a man being Roman Reigns with a vehicle. Probably get a court appointed therapist who told me to get a therapy pet which would have been a rat. I’m like, this is great. This is going to be good for me, and hopefully draw some more eyes to the product and a great story, and Seth backstage was going to curb stomp it by accident. I was like, this is a great idea to start a feud even though I have to carry around the cage and not really tell a story for a couple weeks, but then he turned heel close to a few weeks after that and it just kept getting extended and extended until the awesome reveal.”
AEW’s Brodie Lee tribute show:
“For me to be around those people was very therapeutic in a way. It was a tough night for everybody.”
If there were conversations about him becoming part of AEW following the show:
“It was never a conversation. I was doing and pursuing my own things. At that time especially I didn’t want to be that guy that distracts or reminds you of a loss, especially that quickly. With the Dark Order, I wanted nothing to do with it. That’s nothing to say that I’m better. What I’m saying is I didn’t want anything to do with it because that’s his legacy. If it’s going to fizzle out, I want it to fizzle out, but he made and created that in such a quick amount of time that he had left that I want that to be the memory of him, his TNT Championship, his dog collar matches. I want all that to be held up here and I want nothing to do with that. Even if there was a conversation, I wouldn’t have seen myself having a spot there.”
You can watch the complete interview below:
(h/t to Wrestling News for the transcription)
