Former WWE Superstar and current Lucha Underground performer Paul London recently appeared as a guest on Ring Rust Radio for an interview. Below are some of the highlights.
On his former tag-team partner Brian Kendrick enjoying success in the revived WWE Cruiserweight division and his thoughts in general regarding Cruiserweights being featured in WWE: “I only watch 205 Live whenever I’m at someone’s place that has the network so it’s pretty rare. One friend in Los Angeles has it but he is so busy all the time. He’s a pretty big producer so whenever he has time I will hang out and maybe watch some wrestling. Other than that, I was just on the road and a buddy of mine, JT Dunn and I caught it. Other than that, it feels like a Divas revolution thing to me because the ropes are different color and they want it to be such a standout product so bad that they almost kind of overproduce it as they are known to do with everything they touch. Let’s be honest, they always do that with any shows other than Raw, right?
“So, I’m watching it and I didn’t watch SmackDown which is sad because I consider that my own stomping grounds. Well, it was Velocity but let’s not be specific. The show started off with a big talking segment and I was pretty sure that is how SmackDown starts off now. So, it’s like this show with characters that may be kind of familiar with, maybe not, but nowhere near the push or the draws of what you are going to get on SmackDown. So that’s like the after party show but let’s start this party off with a bang and let’s have a talking segment. It was just really strange to me you know?
“I can’t say I am a real fan of what I have seen on there because I guess it does seem to have a ton of preservatives and it just doesn’t taste very good. I’m not saying that because I’m me and I’ve worked there and I didn’t have the greatest of time when I was there. I think it’s just because I feel as though I’m watching a video game and I don’t really like video games unless I’m standing up and I have a pocket full of quarters and I’m actually at an arcade. So, to sit there and watch a video game when you don’t have a controller in hand and can’t do anything about it, it’s kind of frustrating. Especially when a lot of it doesn’t make sense to me. So, it kind of reiterates me and why I don’t watch it.
“As far as Bryan’s character, in the few times I’ve seen it I’m still trying to figure out if he is a psychedelic pirate or like an ice pirate? I don’t know. Is that what people in Venice do? I’ve been to Venice a lot of times and I met a lot of weirdos but man I just don’t know. I’m trying to think if I was walking down the street in Venice Beach, California and I saw this guy with sparkly cheetah pants and a jacket that looked like it was an excellent arts and crafts project walking down towards me, I don’t know what I would think to myself. I guess it would be kind of scary if anything? His characters really scary just because he seems so angry. The verdict still out and I’m just trying to figure it out. I do like that he’s using a different finisher. It’s a submission finisher when applied right it would really hurt. I do like that a lot because he really whored out his sliced bread to where you knew everybody was going to kick out of it. I remember watching a match he had a while back with Silas Young, who is awesome and I love the guy, a real man’s man. Brian hit him with the sliced bread and he kicked out. Then he hit him with this super sliced bread with both of them on the top rope, Silas kicked out again. Who’s possibly going to believe Brian is still going to win this match? It’s obvious he isn’t going to win and of course, he didn’t win the match. Where else can you go after that? People just aren’t going to buy it anymore after that. I thought it was really refreshing to see him come up with a different finisher. I should probably take some note from that but I am pretty protective of my shooting star press. I should still take some note of that. It’s good to have some variety and I do have some tricks up my pant legs, not my sleeves. Tricks are for kids, right?”
On his debut in Lucha Underground during season three of the show, the process of signing with the promotion and the origins of his unique Rabbit Tribe stable of characters: “I guess I should say it involved gluten-free pancakes, that was part of the courtship. Season one was airing when I moved back to Austin, where I am from, and I was running a wrestling school there. So, sitting there thinking this is interesting, Robert Rodriguez had created this world and I don’t think they shoot here but it would make sense if they did. It turned out they shot in Los Angeles at Boyle Heights. It’s shot in a real warehouse in the working-class Mexican/American neighborhood and it’s awesome there. So, I thought wow that’s really neat. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the product since I was a trying to focus on my training at the time, but a lot of my friends worked there and I was really happy to see them get TV time. So, I made the decision to move back to Los Angeles for acting purposes. Why else would anyone move back to LA right? I get this really great job at Burlington Coat Factory. So, I moved back to Los Angeles and a friend of mine who works as Bale asked if I had any interest in talking to the guys at Lucha. I said yea of course, I am here in LA and that’s where they shoot.
“So, he put us in touch initially with DeJoseph and DJ and I spoke we just kind of like the rap of each other’s thing as far as what we didn’t want to be. Like we didn’t want to do this, I’m not into the head dropping, and I don’t want to show up as I am the toughest guy in the yard character. It’s so cliché and boring. So, it was more so just this is what I don’t like about wrestling and he agreed with me and told me what he likes and then I agreed with him and we had so much in common. Then I was set to start in season two but hurt my knee really bad. That’s where PJ Black came in and really did much better in the spot than I would have at the time. PJs awesome and I don’t know anybody that can maneuver or make moves look as effortlessly as he does. He is so fluid and he really is a big guy and I don’t think people understand how big he is as far as strength and being a really thick guy. He is a crazy son of a b—h and I love that guy. He came in and took that position that initially was thought of for me. So, I had hurt my knee and I was kind of in this depressed wrestling mindset that happens more often than I would like to admit. Coming to my rescue when I was really starting to spiral, I was asked if I wanted to come on board as a producer.
“I started hearing those bells and realizing class is out, what a breather, I got a second chance, and I thought this is amazing opportunity to come in and flex some completely different muscles. I no idea what I was doing. I came in knowing what I didn’t like about producers that I worked with in the past. As far as doing it myself, I’m not saying it’s an office position but when I’m not in the ring there’s a good chance I have a headset on and I’m helping to direct some action. It’s all in the performers and I’m not going to take any credit for that stuff. I do tend to throw some ideas in the mix here and there and a lot of them tend to get used and that’s neat. It’s neat to be in a situation where you have collaboration and you can speak an idea no matter how absurd it might be, and you’re not going to get a drum roll of eye rolls like who hired this idiot? You’re not getting a condescending remark or a response; you’re not going to be insulted as a human being. That is a really nice thing about our environment from a backstage standpoint. It’s just different and it really is enjoyable to go to work to see what kind of amazing stuff you can create with an amazing cast of performers, the makeup crew, the ring crew, the designers, and it really is just amazing. We have this kind of universe being created and it’s so neat to really be a part of that. To say hey you know you could just run off and join the Golden State Warriors or you can really try to go to an expansion team and see what kind of success you can organically create together and that’s way more rewarding and refreshing especially as a performer. You’re always looking for ways to reinvent yourself so you don’t grow stale, it’s anything but that. I’m very excited to be a part of it and to see who else can get killed. That’s really the whole thing it’s like who can die and who can we kill? I might die. C could die and there could be some type of psychedelic orgy where I come back to life with the amulet. Let’s just throw it at the wall and see what will stick and slide.”
Check out the complete Paul London interview at BlogTalkRadio.com.