By Nathan Hunt
This
interview was conducted in August 2014 and originally appeared as a feature piece across two issues of Total Wrestling Magazine. You can check out the
magazine's other great content and subscribe here.
Before
starting in pro wrestling, you trained in Judo from being 11 years old.
What attracted you to martial arts? Were you always drawn to physical
sports?
I
started when I was 11, then when I was 13 I went to live in Germany for
a couple of years. I didn't carry it on there, but when I was 15 I came
back to England and I picked it up again. To be honest when I first
started I pretty much just went along because my mates were all going,
and when you're that age you just do whatever your friends are doing,
but when I came back from Germany, by then I was a massive pro wrestling
fan and in my mind I wanted to be a wrestler and I figured that I'd
need to have some kind of martial arts or fighting background so that's
why I went back to Judo. I already knew some of it and I'd already
progressed through the gradings so I was already at an established level
so it made sense to me to go back to that before training to become a
professional wrestler.
When
you lived in Germany and first became a wrestling fan, what promotions
were you able to watch? Was it just WWF or was there other international
shows you could watch?
This
was 1985-86, and Sky was brand new, it had only just started. For
whatever reason my stepdad managed to get Sky in Germany, he got a
satellite system and managed to get it broadcast over there. One of the
main features of their channels back then in the early days was WWF
wrestling. They were showing stuff that was about a year out of date so I
was watching WrestleManias
2 & 3 and things like that, but that was basically it. Obviously I
was aware of the English stuff because I used to go and watch that when I
was much younger, but when I went to Germany and started watching the
Sky channels and it opened me up to a whole new side of wrestling that
I'd never seen before, which was much more flamboyant. I had used to go
to shows with my dad. There were shows which ran weekly, or pretty much,
and then a bigger show once a month in Reading because there was a
bigger hall there, so we used to go to those. I don't remember too much
about it really, other than there were guys I liked and guys I didn't
like, but at that age you're not interested in the technical aspects of
it or the sporting side, you just get into the characters. What WWF did
when I lived in Germany really grabbed a hold on me and made me a real
fan of that, moreso than any other sport.
Who were the first people to stand out for you and really captivate you and draw your interest?
My favourite
guys then were people like Ted DiBiase, Randy Savage, Jake Roberts, you
know, heels pretty much, but technically solid heels. You could tell
that they were sportsmen and athletes, but I also kind of liked that had
a nasty streak to them and their characters were so over the top and so
well defined so you perfectly understood what was going on and what
they were all about. That's what really attracted me to those sort of
guys. And they weren't hugely muscular, I mean Randy Savage was in great
physical shape but he was still relatively small compared to some of
the really big guys they had.
How did you first hear about Andre Baker's school and how did you end up starting training there?
The
predecessor to PowerSlam magazine was called Superstars Of Wrestling
and they ran an article about Andre's school back in 1993. It had just
opened and there was a two page spread about it with contact details for
Andre so I basically just phoned him up and asked about coming down for
a tryout to start at the school and he said yes. That was July of 1993,
just based on that article alone. I was a massive collector of
wrestling magazines back then, I collected piles and piles of them, and I
had every issue of Superstars Of Wrestling up to that point.
What
were your first impressions of Andre & his school, and what was it
like to transition from Judo to pro wrestling? Do you think that the
martial arts experience helped you at all?
I
had no preconceptions about what the school was going to be like but I
guessed it was going to be similar to old boxing gyms. They were usually
set up in something like a dirty, dusty garage with just a ring set up
and usually some rusty old engines lying about. It was essentially just
an old garage on the side of a cliff in Folkestone with an old, tatty
ring in it, and to me that was fine because it's a training environment
and the more uncomfortable you make your training environment, the
easier it is when you're out of the training environment. If you're too
comfortable while you're training you become lazy and complacent, then
when you find things more difficult in other situations you tend not to
perform as well, but if your uncomfortable while you're training, then
when conditions become more comfortable, it's easier to adapt to it and
you perform better. Andre was just a typical powerlifting and
weightlifting kind of Kent man (laughs). I knew how to fall properly so
essentially knew how to bump and everything like that, so it was just
learning things like running the ropes. The moves I'd watched for a
long, long time, so I kind of knew how to perform them. The difficult
part is what you can't learn in the training area, despite what anyone
says, the structure of a match and psychology, even selling is very
difficult to teach, because a lot of wrestling is based on the crowd
reaction and manipulating them to do what you want, and when they're not
there it's a very difficult thing to train to do. You tend to learn
that on the road, but I had the basics down pretty quickly and that's
why I had my first match about three months after I started training. To
give you an idea of how much I used to train, he would be open Friday
nights, Saturdays and Sundays and it was a two hour drive for me so I'd
go down on Friday night straight after work to train, stay over and
train on Saturday and Sunday, then drive home on Sunday night. So I'd
spend two days and a little bit [extra on the Friday evening] every week
training.
You started off working for Andre's own promotion, NWA Hammerlock UK, so what are your main memories from that time?
The
way wrestling was at that time was that British wrestling was really in
a dead period. No-one really knew where to go to try to become a
wrestler other than speaking to one of the existing promoters and trying
to get training for their shows. The good thing was that it seemed like
everyone who really wanted to become a wrestler who were all about the
same age, between about 16 and 21, seemed to gravitate towards Andre's
gym, so there was quite a good comraderie
and atmosphere between everybody there. We were all obviously working
towards the same goal, so that kind of manifested itself into the shows
because everybody worked hard to put on a great show. He ran some really
big halls back then, like Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone and Mote Park
Leisure Centre
in Maidstone and he drew decent crowds. It was a good learning
experience for everybody, and that's essentially all it was because the
shows were just an extention
of the training environment but giving you that experience of working
on front of crowds. That's of paramount importance and something that
everybody has to learn, but they were good times. Then he started
bringing in Americans and that's always really helpful and a good
learning experience because when you get some imports or talent from
other countries come in you get to see that no matter where you are in
the world that the basics of wrestling are all done in exactly the same
way. So if you meet someone and you don't really know them that well, or
they come from a foreign country, you can still get in the ring and
have a good wrestling match with them. Everybody understands how it
works and it's the same in every country, give or take a few things.
Andre's
school produced a lot of talent that have become big names on the UK
scene and internationally, so what do you think was the main ingredient
of his training that helped his students become so successful?
There
was a very, very high importance on getting the grounding right in that
he'd train you in submission & catch wrestling alongside
professional training, so everyone got a really good basis and
understanding of what it was like to be in a real fight. Then you utilise
that in your performance as a professional wrestler. The other thing of
course is that success breeds success, so other young guys saw that I
was getting somewhere, so they wanted to go to Hammerlock to learn. Then
they became successful, so the next generation of people who wanted to
be successful went there, so it was a kind of snowball effect I'd say.
When people saw that successful guys had gone there, they wanted to go
so they could become names themselves, and that continued for the ten
years or so that he was in operation.
One
of the people who trained there was Johnny Moss, who has recently
opened his own school and has stated that he is basing his training very
much on the training he recieved
from Andre. Do you think that it will be a good thing for British
wrestling to have somewhere that people can learn from that basis again?
It's
definitely a good thing because he will teach students things that a
lot of other schools don't teach and it will give a good grounding and
an understanding of wrestling from the bottom up. He'll teach them how
to wrestle properly, and when I say that I mean wrestle for real, in
genuine sporting competition, like the way you move about, the way you
feel out your opponent and trying to grab hold of them to maneuvre them into position for things, and they can then utlise
that in their performance to make it look more credible to people
watching. A lot of schools now seem to teach very much of an American
style, which makes everyone become very homogenised,
everybody looks and works the same way. A school such as Johnny's would
show them a different way of doing things, a certain way of putting
holds on and some psychology and everything and it can only help and
improve the product by giving more variety and more interest for the
people watching it.
How did you settle on the surname Williams?
One
of the promoters I worked for on the campsites when I first started
gave me the surname [Williams]. Back when I was still training with
Andre he'd get trainees some experience with the odd bookings, just to
get out there, which was good. One of those promoters just gave me the
name one night and I just stuck with it. It was nothing more exciting
than that I'm afraid... If it had been named after someone I looked up
to or had some significance like that I'd probably be Doug DiBiase, but
no.
How did you start using the nickname the Anarchist?
I
started using the name ['The Anarchist'] back in Hammerlock in the
early days of my career. In my mind, it was never a political thing, it
was more an attitude of a rule breaking character who spurns authority
& does what he wants. It's always been strange to me that some
people try to read more politically into it than that because real
anarchists, in the purest definition, wouldn't believe in politics, it
is a rejection of politics if anything. But that was always my take on
it, the no respect for authority, doing as I please kind of character
who disrespects the referee and cheats.
Do you prefer working babyface or heel?
Heel.
It's more fun really and you're able to control the match more and
dictate what happens. I always prefered watching heels as a fan anyway,
so I'm more natural at the psychology of working heel.
You
would go on to work for the FWA. What prompted you to leave Hammerlock
and what were the differences between the two companies?
It
wasn't a straight transition, in 1997 I made the decision to start
working for other promotions outside of Andre and it was a situation of
being Andre's way or not at all, so maybe what was good for me was not
best for him and for Hammerlock. I was trying to get out there and work
for lots of different promotions and FWA was just one of the ones that I
picked up working for, and although my name is associated with them
during that time period, I actually did more shows for All Star
Wrestling and others. Back then there were about four or five touring
promoters and I'd just jump between each one at the time and picked up
the FWA big shows in between. FWA was much more American influenced
while Hammerlock had been more British wrestling style shows, so that
was the main difference really.
FWA
was gaining momentum in the early-mid 2000s, and was getting a lot of
coverage in magazines and amongst fans. It was being heralded as the
focal point for hope of a British wrestling resurgence, so why do you
think it didn't accheive the heights people had hoped for?
Just
exposure really, you can only go so far with something if you don't
have the means, the methods and the marketing to the mainstream. You can
reach a niche audience, but once you've done that there's nowhere else
for it to go. Towards the end, money became an issue as well, and once
that runs out there's nothing else you can do. It's just a shame that at
that time they weren't able to secure a more lucrative TV deal than the
one they had, because that would have helped sustain them for that
little bit longer.
When
you were working for FWA, you started to get more international
recognition for your matches with people like Eddie Guerrero. What was
it like to work with bigger name stars who you would have seen yourself
on TV, and then getting bookings for companies such as ROH & NOAH
etc?
It
was about 2002 that I started wrestling more international names and
travelling abroad more. I'd been wrestling for nearly ten years then and
I was looking at it very much as a job. I did get excited about meeting
and working with guys that were big stars, but it was more that I was
getting to work someone new or someone experienced and be able to learn
from them, so that's where most of my interest came from. Obviously as a
wrestler you're a brand and you have to market yourself to get more
work and earn more money. Being able to perform on stages such as Ring
Of Honor, while the promotion as it was then was actually no bigger than
FWA or anyone else like that, but the coverage and exposure they got
from being an American promotion that had a buzz about them meant that I
was getting exposure as well. That exposure then builds on the name
that you make and builds up your contacts for getting work elsewhere as
well. My ultimate goal when I started wrestling was always to get to
Japan because obviously British and Japanese wrestling have always been
quite close. New Japan always used to send the young guys over to
England to get some experience and learn some technical wrestling and
things like that. I was a huge fan of watching Japanese wrestling while I
was training. I understood that for myself, I wasn't particularly
flamboyant, I wasn't a monster or a freak, I was just an athletic guy,
so I thought that Japan would probably be a better fit for me than the
American wrestling scene. That was always my goal, so for me to go to
NOAH, which in all but name was All Japan Pro Wrestling, that was my
goal acchieved
effectively, so I was over the moon about that. It was good being able
to work against guys I'd watched time and time again, and to learn from
them and learn a different style of wrestling as well; their mentality
and their psychology for how they perform, that was great. It's all a
learning experience, it all builds your career and you build yourself as
a brand and as a wrestler, and that's all we really want to do. Using
anything from that style wouldn't generally translate or get the result
or response you want out of an American or British audience. The style
that works best in the western world is the good guy / bad guy heavy
kind of match with a lot of selling on the part of the good guy, whereas
in Japan it's very much a 'fight each other until one guy falls down'
kind of style, a never give up attitude, which works really well for
their audience but wouldn't always work for a western audience. Outside
of learning the psychology and style of Japanese wrestling, the ability
to put matches together that were long and complicated was the other
main thing I learned! (laughs)
You
worked a match with James Storm on TNA Xplosion in 2003. Were you
offered a position with TNA at that time and why did you not start
working with the company?
They
didn't offer contracts back then, it was just a handshake deal or
whatever I guess. What happened with that was that they called me about
doing the World X Cup and I couldn't do it because I already had
bookings; they wanted me to stay over there for a week, because they
were taping on Wednesdays and wanted me to come and then stay over until
the following Wednesday, but I had shows on that weekend in between so I
told them I couldn't do that, and that was basically that. At the time,
I obviously knew they had a TV show, but they were no bigger at the
time than Ring Of Honor really, so it was just somewhere else to work.
It wasn't like it was a major league wrestling company at that time
coming up to me and saying 'here's a contract for x amount per month'.
You worked some dark matches with WWE in 2006, did you recieve any feedback from them at that time or was any offer made for a role with the company.
I
was never given feedback at the time as to what they thought or why
they didn't hire me. I would get some general comments after the matches
from the usual people, like that it was good, but I never actually
heard anything from talent relations about what they were looking for or
why they didn't hire me. They did ask me about four or five times in a
row to come back to do some dark matches throughout 2007 and 2008, but I
guess unluckily, I was always in Japan and had to keep turning them
down. I was actually amazed that they asked me four or five times
because when you turn them down once, you assume that's the only
opportunity you're going to get. The last thing I heard from them was a
phone call in 2009. What usually happens is that you get an email from
talent relations saying they'd like for you to go to their TV taping on
whatever date. This time I got a phone call from Talent Relations saying
"we want you to come to the WWE tapings and it's very important that we
get to see you" but literally the day before, I'd signed my [2nd] TNA
contract and sent it back to them. I think it's just a matter of fate
that I never worked for them, it was just timing. It was just a matter
of timing for every time I had to turn them down because I had to be
somewhere else, or something happened and unfortunately we never synced.
Interestingly, from when I did my dark matches, Tommy Dreamer was in
Talent Relations so as far as hiring, the main decision makers were his
colleagues, and later when he was in TNA as a wrestler, he told me that
the reaction pretty much straight away was 'I want bigger'. So I wasn't
tall enough. I'm 5'11", and at the time I weighed about 240lbs, but they still had this idea that everyone they hired should be over 6'2".
You came into TNA as part of the World X Cup in 2008. What were your early impressions of the company?
It
was a lot of fun back then. I knew the booking team then and what they
wanted. I was there to highlight the British style within the World X
Cup and that was a lot of fun. I had a lot of friends there already from
working with them in Ring Of Honor and Japan, even some guys who'd
toured England and so that was good. That was in 2008 and I signed a one
year contract with TNA, but I had four tours of Japan already booked
and they wanted me to get those out of the way first. So I was under
contract to TNA for a year and did nothing! [laughs] Well, I didn't end
up doing any work for them,
but I was working solidly in Japan. Then I re-signed a new one with
them in 2009 and that was when we started the British Invasion.
When
you were first told about the plans for The British Invasion faction,
were you apprehensive about being teamed with two performers who were so
much greener, or at least with such lesser experience than yourself?
No,
we all knew what the score was in that regard and what everyone was
meant to do and that was fine. At the end of the day, if anything it
would only make me look better anyway, wouldn't it? It wasn't like it
was people who didn't want to learn or couldn't be taught. We all made
the best of it. It's totally down to their hard work at the time and
their attitude. I knew what my role was and I pretty much focused on
that. I've heard them speak highly of the advice and help I gave them
back then, but they had the opportunity not only to work with me, but
with some of the best talent in the world, so that helped them to
improve a lot as well. That was why they might have seemed to progress
quite quickly, and I was there to try and cover any mistakes and carry
them when needed, things like that, but it wasn't ever really a problem.
We
all took it for what it was and the booking team wanted us to be
stereotypes so we not only gave them those stereotypes but we stepped it
up a bit. We tried not to be too serious, we knew what the image was
that they had of what British wrestling is, and what a British wrestler
should be, so we just had some fun with it and we took that ideal they
had and we gave it to them.
How did you feel when Magnus won the TNA championship?
It's nice for him, I guess; nice that the company would recognise
him for what he can do for them and for his hard work. It's good that
they would put that kind of equity in him and give him the ball and the
chance to run with it. As far as actually winning the title, for me,
it's not like he actually won something like in a legitimate sport, so
you can't be proud in that kind of way. With titles in our business it's
not the winning it, it's what you do with it when you have it that's
important. But it's great that the promotion would give him that
endorsement.
You
started doing some promo work with British Invasion but this expanded
more when you broke away and had your X Division title reign and joined
Fortune etc. Were you surprised that it took so long into your career
before you were really given chance to show your promo ability?
At
the end of the day, there was never previously any call for me to try
my skills on the microphone because I wasn't in that kind of
environment. In joining TNA, I started working on what is essentially a
TV show, which is more driven by characters and storylines and talking
to get your character over. It's not the same as when you're working
[independents] because the most you might do there is cut a promo to
challenge someone to come out and face you or for their title. Whereas
here, you have to get used to doing the more extended
looking-into-the-camera talking where you don't necessarily get that
immediate reaction and feedback from the audience, so it's a different
kind of art. To be honest with you, before I went to America I knew what
would be required of me in terms of doing promos, so I would just
practice it in the mirror and things like that, to make sure I could do
it right.
In
the promos with Fortune, it would seem like everyone was legitimately
competing with each other to get their lines in and make sure they
contributed to the segments. Was that really the case or was it just
designed to appear that way?
Yes, it really was like that. Everyone would kind of fight to say their piece because we only had limited time and we all recognised
that if you're going to get some television time that you should always
make the most of it. I knew what was going to happen in the storyline
anyway in terms of the eventual break up and that I was going to go off
on my own again after a time, so then instead of fighting to get myself
over I would start letting them all kind of push me more into the
background because that was going to help the storyline with the
break-up, it just made more sense in the long term.
You worked against Ric Flair in Wembley Stadium and had TV time with Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff
etc while you were doing the storylines with Immortal and Fortune. What
was it like to share the ring and the screen with those people?
It
was interesting. When you're in the business you want to wrestle people
like that to see how good they actually are and if they are what other
people say they are. 9 out of 10 times, they are, but that was really
the attraction for me at that point, to see if someone like Flair really
would live up to the reputation he has, and at the age he was when I
wrestled him, I'd say that yes, he probably must have been one of the
greatest of all time. He could definitely still go, even at the age I wrestled him, so when he was younger he must have been everything that everyone said he was.
Photo Credit: Simon Only on Flickr
How did you start as a trainer?
I
wasn't given a choice really to be honest with you, I was asked 'how do
you feel about becoming a trainer?', which we all know means 'you're
going to be a trainer'. They sometimes make those decisions for you. It
wasn't a decision I made for myself and wasn't something I was
interested in doing at the time, however it was an interesting and
valuable experience for me and I really enjoyed it. And I learned a lot,
about goes into the TV side of wrestling, about the psychology of TV
wrestling, about what mainstream American wrestling companies really
look for and want. When I came back here [to the UK], I started training
and running seminars and I'm able to teach the stuff I learned in OVW
together with that traditional British style, and teach people how to
mix and mesh the two. I think that's part of the reason that the
seminars are quite well recieved,
because it helps for if you're being scouted by a major league
promotion or you want to get on their radar, but it also helps to
reinforce the traditions and British style of wrestling.
What do you think of the British scene and how it has changed since you've been away?
There
are so many great regional promotions out there at the moment who can
draw in their area and concentrate on their crowd. The talent we have at
the moment is way better than it's ever been in the past, especially in
terms of how they look, their work on their psychology and promo
building, their promotions and their gear. I don't really like to go
into specific names of talents who I think are the best because I always
feel bad for missing people out. I do have my personal favourites of course. I've always been a fan of huge heavyweights knocking the hell out of each other so probably my favourites
are guys like Dave Mastiff & Rampage Brown. It's funny but since I
came back that's kind of what I am, because here I'm classed as a big
heavyweight, and that's what I've always been entertained by, but we
also have a lot of great high flyers.
Do
you think that British wrestling has lost some of it's identity with
the shift over the last decade in particular towards a more Americanised style?
It's
definitely lost it's identity in terms of the specific style, but it
was more associated with the light heavyweights or junior heavyweights
coverage, whatever you want to call them. If you watch a lot of
heavyweight British wrestling, it's the same as American stuff really,
but alot
of our identity was from it being presented very much as a sport,
having rounds, having seconds like a boxer would, and being presented
purely as a sport with the championship belts and weight limits and all
that sort of thing. While some people would laugh and say it was all
phony, they would still have a bit of credibility because you had that
sports feel about it. Obviously American wrestling doesn't have any of
that anymore, but would that work nowadays? I really don't know, because
I think a lot of how British wrestling survived was based on people not
being sure just how real it actually was, whereas now nearly everyone
is wiser to it.
Do
you think British wrestling could ever get back to it's glory days and
run as a territory in its own right like we see in Mexico and Japan?
How did your involvement with GFW come about?
Jeff
Jarrett just called me up and spoke to me and he explained what he was
doing and that he wanted to get some European companies on board. I was
happy to help, I'd always got on well with him when we were both in TNA.
Unfortunately I can't go into much about what's happening with it now
and where it's going because, honestly, I just don't know, but for what
he wanted me to do, I was happy to help him out.
The
guidelines he gave me were that he wanted companies that had a strong
set-up, that ran regularly, were fan friendly & family friendly. By
regularly, he didn't want companies that just run shows once a month, so
I just looked at the companies that fit all the criteria that he asked
about. That was the problem really, that there's a lot of companies in
England who just run shows once or twice a month, and they do well, and
they obviously have a lot of buzz, but Jeff wasn't looking for a company
that could put on a big show once every two months or whatever. He
needs people who run on a more regular basis. There are a lot of
companies as well that are more geared towards an adult audience, but
Jeff's aiming for a more mainstream kind of product. So I just tried to
keep to the companies that fit in with everything that Jeff had told
me.
What kind of impact will GFW have on the global wrestling scene?
I
really don't know [how GFW will affect the wrestling landscape]. It's
an opportunity to present a completely different product and TV show,
which has more of a global appeal than just one market. As far as for
the people in the business, it's great that people will have another
place to work, but it's a great thing for the fans too, because it will
potentially give some exposure and showcase lots of different styles and
different people and wrestlers from all around the world. I think
that's really how it's going to have an effect. It might help to bring
some individuality back into wrestling, rather than just having one
style of product being rolled out like it is now.
Will you be working the Tokyo Dome show (WrestleKingdom) on January 4th and will you be wrestling for GFW yourself beyond that?
It
hasn't been talked about, but at the moment there's no actual concrete
promotion as such in the traditional way, so as far as signing talent
and things of that nature, it isn't going to work that way. It might
well be in their plans, but they are getting some other things in place,
so until that all comes about and they have a solid base of operations
in America, they won't be looking at signing any talent in that respect.
I really don't know myself to be honest with you.
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