Laurel Van Ness Quotes

The best wrestlers, whether it's a Hulk Hogan or a Rey Mysterio, are the ones who have psychology and can understand this business.

Johnny Wrestling, to me, isn't just a cool nickname or a fun thing for the crowd to chant. To me, it's a state of mind, and it's just who I am. I first stepped foot in a wrestling ring when I was 8 years old.

Being a pro wrestler can be kind of difficult sometimes. We have a perception about what we do - and I totally understand the perception, because we're a weekly episodic program, and we're having fun all the time, so people think that's kind of the most talented thing I could do.

As you evolve, you learn that wrestling is not necessarily about stunts or spots. You need to go out and show the audience that they can love you for the persona you are - not because of the risk you're willing to take or the jeopardy you're willing to put your body in.

I definitely miss parts of wrestling like having matches, especially when I watch the product.

Early, when I first started wrestling, I wanted to be a combination of Sting and the Ultimate Warrior: The Ultimate Warrior's craziness and weird personality and Sting's coolness and the way he carried himself to the ring. But then later on, when it came to physicality and athleticism, Shawn Michaels topped the cake.

Bumps often require giving yourself completely to the talent you're in the ring with, and that's what makes wrestling such a performance art that is different from every other.

I've always liked being on the performance end of it. I've come up with different ideas, but as far as being a creative writer, I'm not sure about that. I've always liked the performance end of it and wrestling, getting in the ring in front of a live crowd.

I look at sports entertainment/professional wrestling, whichever you want to call it, I look at it as never done. You're never done learning or getting better or listening, and never done honing your skill.

When I was in England, I did a lot of wrestling and moves. Over here, they were like, 'You don't need to do that much. Save your body. Become an entertainer rather than a wrestler.' And I wasn't used to wrestling on TV and in front of huge crowds, so it was a big adjustment.

The cool thing about WWE is it's like entertainment boot camp. You're performing in front of a live audience, a different audience every night. You're doing promos in the ring. You're doing talking segments in the back. You're wrestling. You're performing. It's everything all rolled into one.

Professional wrestlers are human beings like anybody else.

Without talent, I don't care how funny the writers are or how many comedy lines they come up, without wrestlers you can't have a wrestling program.

We use wrestling moves to tell a story but it boils down to the character and being able to bring either love or hate out of your crowd.

The backstage stuff is not for everybody. I'm very hands on; I like to train and teach young guys now because there's so many of them. There are certain ways to do things, to get crowd reactions and sell your emotions and sell stories.

When I started doing pro wrestling, it wasn't the physical aspect doing the moves or taking the moves that was hard: it was interacting with the crowd, body movement, selling, getting that emotional attachment with people so they're invested in a match. That was the hard part.

Johnny Valentine's the one who said, 'I can't make them believe that wrestling is real, but I can make them believe I'm real.' It would take him forever because he was just stinkingly boring for 30 minutes of the 40-minute match, but he would let people hit him as hard as they could, and he would hit people as hard as he could.

I'm out there to produce the best content - The most creative content I can do and express myself through wrestling.

I am still very much rooted in what I really fell in love with, with sports entertainment and pro wrestling.

We have a very physical performance art. A lot of times, when you want to achieve a certain emotion, you have to use professional wrestling ingredients, which are moves or a sequence of moves.

Believe it or not, I kind of went into professional wrestling so I could get an avenue into acting.

I get a lot of influence from pro wrestling. People are like, 'Oh, it's fake.' But it's not about whether the guy wins or loses, it's about how he entertains you the whole time you're watching.

We really do have a lot of personality in WWE. You have to, to be in this job. You showcase a lot of personality.

Wrestling was like stand-up comedy for me. Every night I had a live audience of 25,000 people to win over. My goal was never to be the loudest or the craziest. It was to be the most entertaining.

Wrestling needs to be about the art form again. It needs to be about painting a picture and having a really good match.