Savio Vega kept pushing me, pushing me, as he was teaching me, too, how to be a heel and things. And how to... 'Let's just try this tonight: just, we'll lock up, you'll go behind me, rub up and down my chest.'
When I head into the cage for an MMA fight, for that time inside the cage, I hate the person standing across the cage. I want to beat him up and beat him up to the point where he never wants to go against me again. After the fight, I can shake his hands, and he - we can be best friends. It's the same thing in professional wrestling.
Every wrestler I've ever had critique me, they were always into my stuff or what I'm doing out there. For a non-wrestler, someone who doesn't even know how to lock up, and if we did lock up, they wouldn't know what to do, for them to critique any of us, it really does pop me.
Leo Burke was an unbelievable trainer. Him and Tom Prichard. Tom Prichard was not a big guy. And I learned a lot from him.
That is something I try to stress to the wrestlers nowadays - there is an epidemic of spot monkeys in the business. They often are so concerned with the fans' reactions that they're willing to kill themselves, while I am trying to help them move past that. It is not about the move, it's about the moment you create, and that's what I'm doing through my broken brilliance.
Jericho uses tried and true, fundamental pro wrestling villain techniques to make him effective. He's a master in ring psychologist.
I hope to have more than one main weapon. I have the Phenomenal Forearm as we're calling it now, the Calf Crusher - the Styles Clash is still available. I like to have a lot of alternative moves to hit people with, and whatever seems to work is what I'll go with.
The best wrestlers, whether it's a Hulk Hogan or a Rey Mysterio, are the ones who have psychology and can understand this business.
The only thing Hulk Hogan ever knew was how to make Hulk Hogan. He couldn't tell you how to make AJ Styles or Samoa Joe. What's Hulk Hogan going to tell Samoa Joe? He doesn't know anything to even tell him; he's got zero to offer.
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.
We weave our real lives into our WWE lives. We just look at what's happening in our lives, and what can we do? What's the most annoying - as a bad guy, as a villain, what's the thing we can do to make people hate us?
Lance Storm taught me everything that I know.
Since I knew wrestling was all choreographed, I thought, Oh, they don't get hurt at all. But I walked away with a renewed respect for the sport. Because I was very ignorant before - I knew nothing about it.
I knew no one had better ring psychology than Jake Roberts.
In the ring-wise, I've learned a lot from working with Bayley.
You can have someone younger, faster, but if you have got that experience and that ring craft, you can do anything in that ring.
I had the pleasure of learning how to wrestle long matches and use psychology.
I swear to you, any question you can have about moves, psychology, gimmicks, the history of Pro Wrestling, he knows. Lance Storm is an encyclopedia of wrestling knowledge.
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.
Fit Finlay and guys like that, who can work with you and tailor who you are and what you're doing in the ring, are unbelievable.
My favorite part of working with 'Lucha Underground' is learning more Lucha, combining that with my WWE psychology, and taking wrestling to a place we've never seen before in the evolution of wrestling.
When the Miz came in, most of the hazing was me working. Me on the mic, me talking to him. I gave him as much advice as I possibly could because I thought he had the ability to be a good heel. But I'm not going to apologize for hazing him.
It's really funny to me that I get called a workhorse or somebody who's really good at making other people better in the ring. I feel like I'm good at every aspect of this. I feel like I'm a great talker; I feel like I'm a great representative of the company. I broke records in college. I have an amateur background with fighting skills.
I trained under Bill DeMott. I did a lot of my promo work with Dusty Rhodes.
Since I was a young wrestling fan, I've been fascinated by super heavyweights and was always amazed at Yokozuna's amazing grace and agility. How could a man who was so large still remain so athletic and retain perfect in-ring timing and spot-on psychology?
