Post by Celgress on Mar 9, 2012 22:39:59 GMT -5
I’d like more than five minutes in the ring with Kurt Angle”
In our EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with TNA’s Doug Williams, the international wrestling star talks career highlights, his greatest title run, and the one match he’d still like to have…
When you look up the word ‘journeyman’ in your pro wrestling dictionary, the odds are you may well find a picture of this man next to the definition: the UK’s very own Doug Williams.
Now a major international star for TNA’s Impact Wrestling, Williams has wrestled literally all over the world – not just here in the UK, but also throughout Europe, the United States, and a seven-year stint in perhaps the toughest wrestling country of them all, Japan.
Last week, CollarAndElbow.com‘s Ben Veal caught up with Doug Williams on the phone in Ayre, Scotland for this exclusive interview, hot off the heels of four successful UK shows. This interview will form part of an in-depth article on the ‘Science Of Wrestling’ that Ben is currently writing for Guru Magazine (coming in June – and you can also read an interview for the same article with Samoa Joe here).
Here’s what the man himself had to say:
Veal: Thanks for your time here today for this interview. I’d like to start off by going back to the very beginning of your career – what was it that initially attracted you to wrestling, and how did you get into it in the first place?
Williams: I spent 10 years studying judo, and that played a big part in the early days. Martial arts were huge at the time, and all of my mates were doing it in the early ’80s. My parents went to Germany when I was 13 and I went with them – it was there that we had satellite TV and I started watching the WWF for the first time; I remember being really attracted by all the superhuman, larger-than-life characters of that era.
When I moved back to the UK at the age of 16, I started judo again – this time, with a view to getting into wrestling. Amateur wrestling was non-existent over here at the time, and I knew I needed to really understand grappling to make it in wrestling. I started my pro wrestling training when I was 19 at the NWA UK Hammerlock Academy in Kent, which sadly no longer exists.
Veal: When you were first starting out, who did you admire and look up to in the sport?
Williams: In the WWF, it was the larger-than-life characters that could also deliver in the ring: for me, that was The Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase and Macho Man Randy Savage. Here in the UK, it was Marc Rocco and Johnny Saint.
Veal: How do people meeting you for the first time react when they discover you’re a professional wrestler? Are they surprised by what you do for a living?
Williams: I don’t receive many negative comments to be honest – most people are fascinated when they discover what I do, and ask me lots of questions about it. I think that’s partly because I’m a regular guy doing this. The mainstream media’s perception of wrestling is that there is a set idea of what a wrestler looks like – for example, Hulk Hogan probably gets the most media attention – but really, there’s no such thing as a standard look.
Veal: Wrestling tends to come under a lot of criticism in the mainstream media. As a professional wrestler who has spent years honing his craft, does that frustrate you, and do you feel like you constantly have to defend what you do for a living?
Williams: Less so nowadays than before, to be honest – opinions have definitely shifted in the last decade. 10 or 15 years ago, the media was obsessed with pushing the idea that wrestlers were ‘conning’ people and revealing the ‘secrets’ behind wrestling. Thankfully, that obsession has now passed and it’s all out there – everyone knows that the focus of wrestling is on entertaining people and on suspending disbelief. Professional wrestling, done well, is all about getting people emotionally involved and hooked into a story – much like the movies.
Veal: You’ve held a lot of titles in your career, including TNA’s X Division, Television and Tag Team titles, the FWA British Heavyweight Championship, ROH’s Pure Championship, and the IWGP Tag titles. Is there one title run that really stands out to you as a highlight?
Williams: My X Division run was very significant to me as I held the title for so long, the best part of a year I think [Williams' two runs with the X Division championship spanned from January 19th - September 6th 2010]. That one stands out in my mind, as I appreciated the company having the faith in me to keep the belt on me for so long. In the same way, the FWA title was important as again I held that for a long time, and I think I played a big part in establishing that title.
Really, it’s any time I am given a long title run, as it gives me the chance to really get my teeth into it and have feuds that mean something.
Veal: You’ve now wrestled for promotions all around the world. Do you find that you have to adapt your style depending on where you’re wrestling?
Williams: In England these days, the style is very similar to the US – it’s the style that wrestlers and fans are used to over here.
But there’s a sizeable difference in Japan where I spent so much time. There it’s very strike-based, and it’s all about wearing the other person down until they can’t continue. You don’t really get the face versus heel, good versus bad thing in Japan. The style there is definitely a lot stiffer – but after seven years working there, you get used to it!
Veal: In 2009, you teamed up with fellow countrymen Magnus and Rob Terry to form The British Invasion. How did it feel to be part of that faction in TNA? Did you enjoy it?
Williams: If I’m honest I had reservations at first – both Magnus and [Rob] Terry were pretty green at that point. But I also wanted to use my experience to get the team moving from behind, and we were fortunate in that we were thrown in with big teams such as Team 3D and Beer Money right from the off … so we became a good heel team in just a few months.
Personally, it was good to use this time to get more tag [team] experience. I did lots of tags in Japan but not really as part of a long running cohesive unit – so being part of The British Invasion gave me that experience. And, of course, it was good to be a heel!
Veal: Recently, your former Invasion team-mate Magnus has been paired with Samoa Joe, in a wild card team that has proved to be very popular. Did it surprise you how well that pairing has worked together?
Williams: They’ve done a great job with that team – sometimes it just happens. The chemistry is definitely there between them both, and their contrasting styles and look also helps. Good on them, I say.
Veal: In 2010, as X Division Champion, you cut a promo saying that you hated the division’s style – full of acrobats – and that you were going to re-establish it as a place for pure catch-as-catch-can wrestlers. Did you enjoy that particular run, and were you disappointed when it came to an end – and you had to vacate the title due to, of all things, a volcano? [Williams was stranded in the UK in April 2010 when his flight back to the States was grounded due to the volcanic ash cloud in Iceland)
Williams: I didn't agree fully with what my character was saying at the time, but there was definitely some truth there. High-flying moves must mean something, and shouldn't just be thrown out there in a match.
I think that period of my career was good as it gave me the opportunity to really talk - I like talking, I'm good at it, and I think some of those promos raised a few eyebrows.
Vacating the title didn’t worry me – they put me right back in the program straight afterwards and kept the belt on me. A far bigger issue for me was missing so much due to being grounded in the UK; I was stranded here for over a week, and so missed three tapings and a PPV. I think I was the only one on the roster who missed out on all that.
Veal: I was in attendance at the Brentwood show of TNA’s first UK tour in 2008, when you wrestled a three-way against AJ Styles and Jay Lethal in front of a very intimate crowd. Four years later, TNA is now selling out Wembley Arena and taping its flagship show, Impact Wrestling, here in the UK. Does it surprise you how quickly the company has grown?
Williams: Not really – that first tour was a tester but I think we should have gone in straight with a big arena tour, we could have pulled it off.
TNA has a huge following over here now, the deal with Challenge TV has helped a lot there with more people seeing the product. But there’s always the danger of over-exposing it, and the company have to be careful to limit it to keep demand high.
Veal: TNA’s shows in the UK in January were very well-received indeed. You’ve now wrestled on both sides of the Atlantic – do you notice a difference between UK and US wrestling fans?
Williams: There’s a big difference between US and UK fans that I’ve noticed. America is so large that you can’t group it all together, but over the years they’ve seen all the big stars and had more opportunities to watch wrestling. There’s a big difference in the UK as fans don’t get to see big shows that often; but there’s a real feeling here of the fans having a good time and really making the most of the shows. Over-exposure could change that though of course.
Veal: TNA’s tagline is now Wrestling Matters – presumably as a direct response to other promotions pushing the entertainment side of the business to the forefront. Do you feel that the industry has changed in that regard in recent years?
Williams: No – it’s an entertainment business, after all! Professional wrestling is all about the spectacle of entertainment, and that hasn’t changed.
One thing that has been lost though is the over-the-top characters that first attracted me to the sport. These big characters and gimmicks have gone awry; both major companies are now striving to be a lot more ‘real’.
The characters in wrestling today are far more subdued than ever before – even in the Attitude Era when wrestling was at it’s most popular you had these characters that drew people in. I think that’s something that’s definitely changed over the last few years.
Veal: You’re now back to being a singles competitor in TNA. What’s next for Doug Williams, and what are you looking to still accomplish in your career?
Williams: I’m not sure what’s next to be honest – I’m in a bit of a holding pattern. It would be good to get back into the title picture at TNA, whether that’s the X Division, Television, Tags or the World Heavyweight, I don’t know. But the most important thing for me is that I want to stay injury-free.
Veal: One final question – throughout your career, you’ve clashed with some of the industry’s biggest stars, including Eddie Guerrero, Samoa Joe, CM Punk, Bryan Danielson and AJ Styles. Is there one opponent or match that really stands out? And is there someone you would like to be in the ring with that you haven’t yet had the opportunity to face?
Williams: There are two guys that I’ve always had great matches with: Christopher Daniels and Jerry Lynn. We always bring out the best in each other, and I’d like to get in the ring with both of them again in the future.
But one match that I’d really like to have is against Kurt Angle. We had a match a while back but that was only for about five minutes – I’d like another match with Kurt, and some good time in the ring against him.
Veal: That’s definitely one match that wrestling fans around the world would like to see!
Source:
collarandelbow.com/id-like-more-than-five-minutes-in-the-ring-with-kurt-angle/
