Tessa Blanchard Quotes

I came up in the U.K., which is a very catch-as-catch-can style, and then I somehow ended up in Japan and spent eight years there learning strong style. I got to spend some time in Mexico learning the lucha libre style, and the WWE is a hybrid style of everything mixed together.

Cornish wrestling was very different from that in Devon - it was less brutal, as no kicking was allowed.

You can have the best college wrestling in the world, but you can have terrible MMA wrestling.

I've had the opportunity to wrestle Daniel Bryan through several phases of his career, except for his time in WWE. What I remember is that he was great the first time I wrestled him, and he kept getting better every match afterward.

So I don't think one type of wrestling is right and one type of wrestling is wrong, and I've used that ability to unlearn what I've done and really go back and get back in touch with that Dragon Gate style since now there's a lot of guys that can work with that.

I like going to Japan where they treat it like a real sport. I like doing the entertainment stuff with the WWE. I really like doing the small venue stuff, like Ring of Honor, because everything is so intimate. There's different feelings and different experiences, and you have to be good at different things to do all of that.

I gravitated to the pro wrestlers and the grappling - Hulk Hogan 'hulking up' always looked cornball to me - and I wanted to see Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat, and Harley Race go move-for-move.

There's probably a hundred more submission holds in the WWE because of me training to bring in those submissions so people could look at them a legitimize them for pro wrestling. You look at it before I was there and after I was there: it's different matches.

Leo Burke was an unbelievable trainer. Him and Tom Prichard. Tom Prichard was not a big guy. And I learned a lot from him.

I remember when I had just left WWE and I was wrestling in England and Germany, I could just tell that this influx of this new wave of wrestling was coming much like it felt when I began wrestling back in '99.

I've wrestled some of the best wrestlers in the world - both male and female.

There's guys like Daniel Bryan and CM Punk that incorporated mixed martial arts submissions and moves into professional wrestling. I feel like the way it was incorporated was really good, but there's not enough people doing it.

Here are the five guys I learned the business from: Barry Windham, Ricky Steamboat, Arn Anderson, Larry Zbyszko, and Bobby Eaton. Those guys taught me how to do everything in the ring. I learned so much from each of them.

I've been pushing and training for Lucha Underground and AAA, as well as parkour and stunt training for my movie, and I've blended those styles together for my wrestling.

All the territories or places I've wrestled are different. There are different styles. The WWE and TV style is also very different.

Even my most physical matches in New Japan have all been athletic contests, and generally, they've all been fair and square. It's been this new, strong style we've been trying to create in New Japan, with my own personal style.

I've been around in WWE for quite a while now and before that had - even in Florida - I've been all around the world and seen every type of style in opponent; the way I was trained and stuff, I got a lot more tricks up my sleeve.

I don't know anything about CM Punk. I'd never even heard of him until he was mentioned in UFC. I wouldn't know him if I walked past him in the street, I don't know... he might be a good wrestler but there are people in the UFC who are just good wrestlers.

Working with Lucha and Mexico and all the independent wrestling I've done has made me an exponentially better performer.

The game has changed since the '80s, where you could punch and kick and headlock and do one suplex, and that's a 25 minute match.

Antonio Inoki majored in strong style. He showed real emotion with real technique in the ring. Hard shots that look like hard shots. But the important steps is the real technique from the real martial arts. It means detail is important.

I'd love to be in the ring with guys like Goldberg, Brock Lesnar, and The Undertaker, as, no matter what they've done, I know how good my conditioning is. If those three can say the same thing, I'd love to go and hang with them because I don't think they could hang with me.

We got tables they're going through constantly, chair shots, all this, very dangerous maneuvers where you can possibly break your neck or something like that.

My dad grew up wrestling. He knew Ken Shamrock, and I didn't know who he was at the time. So, he found out that Shamrock was in a gym in Reno, and he wanted me to go try a class with him. I tried it and fell in love the first day. Ken told me that I had potential in this sport, and he's the reason I kept at it.

Being back with Impact wrestling, I couldn't be happier for those guys, but from a professional and business side, it energises me so much to find the next AJ Styles, the next Bobby Roode, the next Samoa Joe.