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Scott Hall is a great wrestler, a better friend, but more than anything a very caring human being. Scott never passed a homeless person or someone in need without opening his wallet. This is a guy that has the first two nickels he ever made.
In wrestling, if you want to be the best wrestler, you show up at the U.S. Nationals. If you win that, you go to World Team Trials. You make the World Team, you go to the World Championships, and we all know who the best is at the end of the year.
People at WWE would say, 'It doesn't matter if you're the best wrestler,' but I would think about Dean Malenko and Chris Benoit and Rey Mysterio. They weren't necessarily the greatest talkers, but they were great wrestlers. I wanted to be that person.
I don't know of any wrestler who hasn't, at one time or another, been with a fan. One time I met a woman at a match in Tennessee, and afterward we went to a little roadside motel. We checked in, went to the room, and enjoyed each other for an hour or so.
If all you are is a pro wrestler, on some level you eventually become, I feel like, a mindless drone. It's tough, man, if you're on the road and you're doing 200, 250 shows a year. It starts to take a toll on your personal life and who are you as a human.
I think I was always so resistant to coloring my hair because, you know, when my dad was still alive, it's so easy for a second- or third-generation wrestler to just copy their predecessor. The hardest thing you can do is try and carve out your own legacy.
If you look at the Intercontinental Champion, historically, that has always belonged to the best of the best in-ring talent, the best wrestler, whatever you want to call it, that came out night after night, produced night after night - and that will be me.
I don't know anything about CM Punk. I'd never even heard of him until he was mentioned in UFC. I wouldn't know him if I walked past him in the street, I don't know... he might be a good wrestler but there are people in the UFC who are just good wrestlers.
Mickey Rourke's character in 'The Wrestler' - that was my dad, that was my uncles, that was so many members of my family. It was the only thing they knew. And then they would end up wrestling for a hundred bucks, go to autograph signings for two hundred bucks.
It seems every bouncer, every bodybuilder wants to become a wrestler. Every day, people will come up to me and ask about it. So few actually make it but if you do make it you can now make into the millions. You have to know your character and have a lot of ability.
It's really important: you can be the best wrestler in the world and make the most money, but if you're not a good person in the back, that says a lot about you. I've never wanted to be that person, because I've had so much help along the way, and I want to continue that.
One thing that I'm super fortunate of - I grew up in a house where it was all about health and fitness. My dad was a wrestler; he was a boxer. He's always been into working out, and so I was the only kid in the first grade that got carrot sticks at school instead of chips.
When I was really little, I wanted to be a wrestler so I could be like the girls I looked up to. My brother then told me that 'You don't want to be like your idols; you want to grow up and be better than them.' To this day, that's the best piece of advice I've ever gotten.
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.
Many hotels, I just sat there and - I call it the silent scream - I don't know why, you just sit there, and tears will just come down, and you'll just sit there for hours, man. There's no place to turn, and when you do turn, who cares? You're just a dumb professional wrestler.
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.
It took more strength and hard work than I would've believed myself capable of, but with God's grace and strength, I managed to lift myself up and become a better person that I'd ever imagined - I believe I have become a loving husband, a compassionate father, and a stronger wrestler.
I always try to outdo the guys. It doesn't matter who you are. Even Sami Zayn - I want to have a better match than Sami Zayn, and he is absolutely incredible. I knew at a very young age that I wanted to change the definition of what it is to be a Diva and what it is to be a woman's wrestler.
Ben Askren, he is a very strong wrestler, probably the best in the division, I think. But then again, when you're in the fight game like this, some of the other things you have to improve. It can't just be wrestling all the time. You got to continue to work on your striking, get better at that.
I put on 15 kg for my role as an amateur wrestler in the first half of the Marathi film Natrang.' Then, I lost 17 kg for the second half of the film where I play a nachya,' an effeminate character in traditional Marathi tamasha. The weight gain took 40 days and I lost weight in the next 40 odd days.
I was that 16-year-old who loved WWE, and I wanted to be a pro wrestler, but I didn't understand why I had to be the bad guy. I wanted to be like Jeff Hardy - I wanted to be like Rey Mysterio - but I was told I had to be the guy who screamed terrible things about America and attack people from behind.
Triple H is a former bodybuilder. He's all about bodies. He thought that Hulk Hogan was the greatest wrestler in the world. They think Ultimate Warrior was the greatest wrestler in the world because that's what they're attracted to, but he's not really a wrestling fan like I grew up. I was a wrestling fan.
For me, the only way I know how to do this is to be myself. I actually learned that from 'The Dream' Dusty Rhodes. I was trying to be this wrestler, and I was trying to be cool, and Dusty literally told me, 'You've got to be yourself.' That's really how Bayley started, and that is what brought me this far.
Even when I was a young kid, I always told my uncle that, when I became a wrestler, I wanted to be Rey Mysterio, Jr. and I wanted to wear the mask. I always pictured myself wearing a mask. I dreamed about it for so long. I wanted to be one of those luchadores who wore the mask, the cape, and the fancy outfits.
For the most part, since the time I was in EliteXC fighting, maybe there were one or two fights here and there that they had me to win, but for the most part I've been an underdog. I'm not a kickboxer so I'm going to lose to a kickboxer. I'm not a wrestler, my wrestling sucks, so I'm going to lose to a wrestler.
Paul Heyman has always been the only guy from the office that ever really had my best interest and really understood me. The other agents and promoters seemed confused why the fans liked me so much, because I was so non-typical for their idea of a wrestler, so they just tried to capitalize on it without owning it.
My mom was like, 'What did I do as a mom for you to want to become a wrestler?' They just didn't understand, and it's really hard to explain what made me love wrestling so much. There's something about it that made me fall in love, and ever since I laid my eyes on it, I knew I wanted to be a professional wrestler in the WWE.
It wasn't until 2002 when I returned to WWE and until I had physically been out there - it was during the match when Kevin Nash blew his quad. That next morning, I was sitting on the plane, reading my Bible and the Book of Joshua, and this feeling came over me that I was back here for a reason. God built me to be a wrestler.
I'm not scared of anyone. I don't care whether you are a jiu-jitsu fighter or a wrestler or a stand-up fighter: I want to put myself against you, and I want to see who is better. And if you are the guy that is going to beat me, I'm going to take that loss like a man and go back, and I'll work on me self. That's how I look at fighting.
I've known Woodley for nine-plus years, ten-plus years. We've worked out together plenty. He's one of the guys who used to slam me all around the place. I was at 155, he was at 170 pounds and he was just the wrestler that is a superpower. So that was one of the dudes that got my wrestling a little better from going with guys like that.
When I was three, my parents were told that I would never be able to recover from rheumatoid arthritis. Doctors from the biggest and the best of hospitals had said that the condition would never be cured. But with naturopathy and yoga, I recovered and became a wrestler, and even got the opportunity to represent my country in wrestling.
Will you lose everything you've got if you open your own restaurant? Who knows. Will unleashing your secret desire to teach tap dancing ruin your reputation as a professional wrestler? Who knows. And who cares? Unless your unknown puts you at risk of death, prison, or bodily harm, you have nothing to lose except living a dull, uninspired life.
There's a lot of guys that made big money in wrestling because they just projected such a realistic character. And they weren't necessarily great athletes. Junkyard Dog played football, Junkyard Dog the wrestler, mechanically in the ring he was just not that good. His gift was, unbelievable work on the mic. He had charisma coming out of his ears.
