If you follow anybody in the wrestling community on Twitter, you’ve probably seen about a billion links to this already. If you haven’t, now you have.
The gist of it is that Dave Lagana, former head writer on WWE Smackdown and ECW, did a 90 minute interview with former WWE talent and current New Japan Pro Wrestling grappler MVP. Now, when he was in WWE I didn’t particularly care about MVP, as when I started watching regularly again he was already in the phase of his tenure where he was only on TV sporadically and, when he was on TV, didn’t really do anything. I remember watching him in Deep South Wrestling, which used to be on televised in Canada on The Fight Network and enjoying his schtick, which really popped when compared to the rest of the roster. I believe their Heavyweight Champion (and one half of the tag team champions with Mike Knox, who I assume is now homeless and eating alley cats) was named Blandy McBlanderson. Which is entirely beside the point, which is that this interview is fascinating. Most former WWE stars tend to be either overwhelmingly negative about the ‘E because they hold a grudge, or are tight-lipped because they don’t want to hurt their chances of making it back. MVP’s interview is a rarity in that he’s fairly even-handed, acknowledging that, like anywhere else, there are pros (the wellness policy mostly eliminating the pill-popping culture of pro wrestling) and cons (the developmental system is kind of a clusterfuck). This interview actually makes me want to go find some of MVP’s current NJPW stuff, because unlike a lot of the WWE developmental guys, he knows his shit.
Unrelatedly, HEAT is back next Wednesday.
