Road Warrior Animal gives his take on why today's group of wrestlers have such a hard time getting over.
WWE Hall Of Famer and former three-time WWE Tag Team Champion Road Warrior Animal recently joined "The Ride With JMV" podcast to discuss his run in WWE alongside Road Warrior Hawk as 'The Road Warriors'. Throughout their years Animal and Hawk had the opportunity to work with some of the most well-known names in the sport of professional wrestling. One of the names who has been in many of headlines recently because of the documentary that is based on him is "The Eighth Wonder Of The World" Andre The Giant.
Animal recalled the time when he, Hawk, and their then-manger Paul Ellering were in Japan and they got their first glance at the mythical-like man that was Andre The Giant.
"No, I haven’t got a chance to watch it [The ‘Andre The Giant’ documentary]. You know its funny the first time I met Andre; we were in Tokyo, Japan and we go by that little club that…. There’s this famous steakhouse in Japan called ‘Ribera steakhouse’ and if you are a wrestler and you haven’t been to Ribera’s, you got a screw loose or something because you’ve got everybody that’s been a wrestler all over that country as well. So, we were leaving Ribera’s steakhouse and we’re walking around the corner. It was Hawk and I and “Precious” Paul Ellering. And we hear this music playing, this little bar and he goes ‘Aww, there’s the ‘Pink P***y Cat'. It’s a little bar, its famous for wrestlers, lets go in’. Well, we go in there and there’s Andre The Giant sitting on a stool which it looked like, it literally looked like he had someone’s toothpick. You know, he was so freaking massive, and he’s sitting on the stool and that’s the first time we met Andre." He shared. "He was a great guy and then the next time was when we were in WWF you know, when all three ‘Demolition’ guys were jumping Andre and Hawk & I came in to help him out and save him. So, great guy, very professional, there will never be another Andre The Giant."
One of the characteristics other than their look and in-ring ability that has made the Road Warriors such a respected team in the industry is their skills on the microphone. Animal stated that the lack of letting today's wrestlers speak from the heart and portray their real-life personalities on-screen is what hurts the majority of the talent; hence, them not being able to connect with the fans.
"Well you know I think… One thing you can’t teach in this business is charisma, and if you can’t talk you’re dead, and I think that’s what you’re seeing in the WWE right now; you wanna know why… Say for instance a guy like Roman Reigns. The guy looks like a Greek God, works out great, looks good, but, you know, if you can’t talk and the difference is man, we were allowed to be our own personality." Animal stated. "Today, you have a group of writers telling you what to say and do. So it’s a little different ball game and not everybody is cut out to be an actor. So, when you have a script to say and you have to follow it word by word for your verbiage and you don’t get it across the right way, people are going to ‘You know what’ at it. The gift of gab was definitely in Hawk and I’s favor," He continued on stars being scripted, “They’d could come to us and say ‘Hey, here’s our end result of the match, what do you want to do?’ We would talk to the guys we were doing the end result with and that was the extent of our conversation. We never talked about another thing within the match. Maybe one idea, two ideas, but we never discussed… Now today, their interviews are scripted out, their matches rehearsed; gone over, and over, and over, and over, and we never did any of that stuff. Maybe for a Pay-Per-View we’d go over it more, but we never had to go over every TV match. We had confidence in our abilities to do what we had to do as professionals."
Animal also revealed how he and Road Warrior Hawk came into the name 'The Road Warriors', and how it feels to be recognized as one of the best tag teams of all-time.
If you are going to use any of the quotes above, credit "The Ride With JMV" podcast, with an H/T to Fightful.com for the transcriptions.
