Monster Factory product Punishment Martinez recently spoke to Interactive Wrestling Radio. You can check out submitted highlights below, or the full interview at this link.
Starting in wrestling:
"Like most wrestlers today, I grew up watching it and was a big time fan. I dreamed of doing it. We had martial arts schools. We ended up closing them down. I moved around. It came to a point where I didn't know what to do next. A friend of mine came to me and said, "Hey, why don't we do this wrestling thing we always dreamed of doing?" I didn't even know how to go about it. I mean, what do you do? Show up at a wrestling show and say, "Hey, we're wrestlers!" (laughs) He said, "No, we've got to go to school and train." He found the school in South Jersey, the Monster Factory. The rest is history!"
The Monster Factory:
"Over time, the Monster Factory has evolved as has wrestling. It has had different trainers and different facilities. Now, because of how wrestlers and athletes are trained these days in terms of wrestling, it has become a mini-performance center. There's amateur matches, a weight room, multiple rings. It's not just in-ring training. As I said, wrestling has so many different dynamics to it now compared to yesteryear. It needed to evolve! It comes down to fundamentals and being able to tell a story... Everything beyond what you see as just moves. It is what's before and after that is so important. That's been the heart of the training of the Monster Factory! It is the way it makes guys do things the right way, be businessmen, to treat this as a business, and weeding out the bad folks who don't belong in our business. I think that is why it has been so successful as far as breeding popular stars."
Where he was raised:
"I'm from New York. I was raised in Puerto Rico so Spanish was my first language. I moved to the States when I was about 11 and have lived in the Tri-States the rest of the time."
Learning promo work:
"The psychology and even the speaking, the promos, that was a little harder for me too." He goes on to say, "It is about knowing The problem is when you don't know what to say or when to say it, it becomes challenging. I can say words and make them menacing but if it doesn't make sense in the moment, it becomes wasted words. "
Being a bigger wrestler today:
"You raise a very good point and I like the way you worded that. It is hard which is funny because pro wrestling was all about the big men. Now, there's a big man and the fans are like , "Ugh, I don't want to watch this guy." It used to be the opposite! What happened? (laughs) I kind of like the challenge a little bit because when you can succeed being the one that everyone expects to fail, it is just that much better. I know if they're expecting the worst and you give them something good, they're going to say that it is great. If you give them something great, it is going to be special! That's my goal. There are still a lot of big men and they're very athletic. The style has changed. There's no generic big man anymore."
Working with Abyss:
"There's still your classic big men like you said, Abyss, who knows how to tell a story so he doesn't have to rely on doing dives and flips and wantnot because he knows who he is. Everybody knows who he is! He's established! Would Abyss, how he works, starting now, would that work? I don't know. Maybe it would, because it still does. But, would he get the opportunity?" He goes on to say, "I'm a big fan of Abyss and what he does."
