Colt Cabana recently spoke with the folks from Channel Guide Magazine for an interview. Below are some of the highlights.
On WWE changing the way they view the independent scene and independent wrestlers compared to the past: “It’s pretty wild. I remember wrestling on Sunday Night Heat and Velocity and seeing the landscape of WWE in 2005. Even at that time, I was kind of a bigger independent star. I was a Ring of Honor tag team champion one night and losing to Eugene the next night. That kind of showed you how they looked at that side of the ball. Now 10, 12, 13 years later, it has changed. I think us back in the mid-2000s, we were aware how good the independent scene was and talent was. It was a shame that because we were a little smaller and not super jacked, we weren’t getting these opportunities on a global scale. Thankfully, that platform has always been available in Ring of Honor. Ring of Honor has always used the best wrestlers, maybe not the best-looking wrestlers. Now WWE is kind of coming to this realization 13 years later. All it does is say there is so much history with guys like Samoa Joe and Seth Rollins and Kevin Owens. There are so many people who are on the internet compared to years ago where you can just Google ‘Kevin Owens Wrestling.’
“It’s a nice trickle-down where fans can see where they came from and go to wrestling shows in your local area to see the next batch. That’s something we all knew, but it wasn’t something familiar. Now it’s where we almost wanted as wrestling fans where the independent scene is a great breeding ground as opposed to this place of misfit wrestlers. Ring of Honor has their own little area of the wrestling world where 15 years we’ve been making stars that you know are going to be the next stars of wrestling. Now with a bigger platform on television all the time, we have stars who are straight-up stars. Gone are the days you had to wait for them to go on to WWE. Now they are stars current day in Ring of Honor. It’s showing in guys like Bullet Club and even Kenny Omega coming to the shows. These are the draws now. You don’t have to have Christian main event a Ring of Honor or Jeff or Matt Hardy coming back from WWE. It’s our own guys, which is pretty special.”
On WWE sending a ‘cease and desist’ order to The Young Bucks: “They’ve always done stuff like this. From the days of Howard Finkel, his alleged job was to read the dirt sheets to see what was happening. They always had their ear to the ground on who is infringing on their stuff. I get it. They went to their own place. The Young Bucks and Bullet Club went to their show and tried to make a little raucous the same way WWE did years ago. They have the right to use their money and lawyers the way they want to. They have a lot of money and have a lot of lawyers. So that’s what they do.”
On his work as a wrestling commentator: “I don’t want to take from anyone in wrestling. That is important to me because I don’t want to be a second rate anybody. Just like in my wrestling style, I get a lot of inspiration from pop culture and comedy. I want to be as conversational as I can. I’ve been doing podcasting now for seven-and-a-half years, it’s kind of moved into broadcasting a little bit. When I’m talking about wrestling, I don’t want it to sound corny or sound like a 1970s broadcaster. I just want to sound like me. Hopefully, that’s the voice of the wrestling fan or a familiar voice of the wrestling fan. I think that’s important to be a voice that sounds familiar and not some over-the-top critical analysis.”
Check out the complete Colt Cabana interview at ChannelGuideMag.com.
