A brand-new Conversations With Love is LIVE!
On this week’s brand-new episode of CWL, Spencer is joined for the second time by one of Alberta’s most revered names, The Irishman! Tune in for their second conversation as they discuss:
- His return to the ring after a two-year absence
- Ring rust
- A potential full-time return to the ring
- How he feels about being called an Albertan wrestling legend
- What continues to inspire his love of wrestling
- His role as RCW commissioner
- On wrestling with his son, Son of Irish
- The art of psychology in pro wrestling
- Receiving backlash for Son of Irish’s training
- What he would have changed about his training
- How training has changed since he was learning
- Wrestling the Invisible Man
- His favourite matches
- How dropping a championship is more important than winning it.
Conversations With Love is proudly brought to you by Beercade YEG.
Conversations With Love 46: A Conversation With The Irishman
Highlights:
On his return to the ring:
“I’m a little on the fence about it, I’m not gonna lie. I was doing a favour for somebody, and everything got switched around. It was supposed to be a quick five-minute little thing with somebody else and then it turned into a one-on-one match with Barricade, which was fun. And you know, I won, which made it even better, but yeah, it was good back in the ring, had fun. Haven’t been back in since, but yeah, it was good. It was fun.”
“The funny thing is, I was always that guy saying ‘I’m not getting back in the ring until I can get some training done.’ And then, all of a sudden, I find out ‘well, the card is a match short.’ And I’m an old-time wrestler, so my gear goes in my car every time I go to a wrestling show. And I had my gear, so yeah, I ended up having a match.”
On professional wrestlers wearing out their welcome:
“Yeah. There’s a point where you got to say that’s enough. You’ve got to look at guys like even Hogan and all of them that stuck around way too long. Like, they were around way longer than they should have been. And then, you’ve got guys like Shawn Michaels, who I give pure respect to because he was one of the few guys that said, ‘I’m done. I have to stop now,’ and he stopped. Right. How many times has the Undertaker retired? Four? Five? He keeps coming back!”
“Honestly, I’ve always said to myself - and I’m getting to that point now - but before I hurt my shoulder, this is one of the things that I used to say all the time, is if I can still outwork a younger kid who’s just starting, I’m not ready to quit yet.”
On psychology in professional wrestling:
“In my opinion, I think that’s an art form that’s lost in today’s wrestling is the psychology and the why and the where we put things. It’s not taught the way it should be, in my opinion, and that’s, that’s an unfortunate thing. So for me, being able to pass that on to him where he’s sitting there now in RCW going, ‘that doesn’t make sense. Shouldn’t we do it this way?’ and seeing the guys go ‘oh yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense.’ That makes me feel really good because it’s letting me know that he’s actually listening to me and listening to understand and starting to understand that certain things make sense at certain points in the match.”
How professional wrestling has changed:
“Training has changed a lot. Like, the new school training, in my opinion, it shows that at any Joe blow can get in the ring and wrestle. This is no shot, I’m just using you as an example. This is no shot. If you were to dedicate one month, three times a week to training, certain promoters would put you in a show after a month. And that is too soon. You’re not ready. And that’s the biggest difference between old school and new school.”
“New school is ‘I can use your look. I can use this, I can use your height, I can use your muscle. I’m going to put you in my show.’ Old school - I was not allowed to wrestle a professional match, I was not allowed to make a debut because I was told that I could easily make a debut, but I couldn’t make a debut until I could wrestle the Invisible Man and put him over. I had to wrestle for 12 to 14 (minutes), but I had to literally wrestle the Invisible Man and he had to win.”
“It’s not easy, but at the same time, it is easy if you’re trained properly. If you were to ask any single person right now to wrestle the invisible man, a lot of people couldn’t do it. But I could with my body movement and with my emotions, the way I was standing, you could tell that the Invisible Man had me in a headlock with my emotions. You can tell I was arm dragging the Invisible Man. So wrapping up the arm and putting in a lock, you can tell that, you could see that. It was hard, especially when you got to moves like body slams. When you do a full match, you know, I’m playing the face, the invisible man is the heel and I had to put him over and he had to beat me with a Powerbomb. He was the bad guy. I was the good guy. So I’m trying to get the fans and you know, I’m selling a kick to the ribs and you can’t see it. There’s nobody there kicking me. It was hard. It was really hard. And he had to beat me with a Powerbomb. That was the move that I pulled out of a hat.”
Follow the Network!
The Irishman on Instagram: @TheIrishman316
Spencer on Twitter: @SpennyLove_WCS
The WCSN on Twitter: @WCSportsCA
The WCSN on Facebook: TheWCSNca
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