A brand-new Conversations With Love is LIVE!
This week, I’m incredibly excited to be joined by one of the icons of Canadian professional wrestling, Tyson Dux! In his first appearance on Conversations With Love, the founder of the Tyson Dux Wrestling Factory and recent Dark Side of the Ring actor discusses his in-ring career, his portrayal of Chris Benoit and everything in between, including:
- How he’s staying busy during the COVID-19 pandemic
- What he loves about training professional wrestlers
- How he continues to improve as a trainer
- On his appearance on Kenny vs. Spenny
- His continued feud with Spencer “Spenny” Rice
- How professional wrestling brings people together
- What makes Ontario’s wrestling scene unique
- Canadian professional wrestling being underappreciated
- How major events, such as Summerslam 2019, impact independent wrestling markets
- His impact on Canadian professional wrestling
- Representing Canada in the Cruiserweight Classic, TNA and more
- Working for WhatCulture Pro Wrestling
- Playing Chris Benoit in the Dark Side of the Ring documentary
- Separating the man from the act
- How the documentary brought him closure
- If there was ever a formal offer to wrestle for WWE
- Wrestling with his son
Conversations With Love is proudly brought to you by Beercade YEG.
Conversations With Love 65: A Conversation With Tyson Dux
Highlights:
Getting the opportunity to play Benoit:
“So, they base their stuff out of Toronto, of course, because Toronto’s a great filming area because it’s cheaper. It’s easy to get rings because it is Toronto. It is easy to get talent, all this stuff. Jason, who’s the director, is from Nova Scotia, so he’s a Canadian boy, and then Evan, of course, is just across the pond, he’s just in the States. So, those guys got together, and I got hired just because of my name to do the Dutch Mantel role because of my beard that I had at the time, and it was great! It was a great experience.”
“So, when the second season came up, they were looking for people to play different roles for the series, for the whole series. They asked me to see if any of my kids could fit any of these roles. So, I put one of my kids and said ‘hey, he could probably play Benoit,’ and they’re like ‘ah, he really doesn’t have that Benoit vibe, we were honestly really hoping that you would play the role of Benoit other than him.’ I said ‘of course, I would love to, just I have a whole bunch of tattoos, so I really didn’t want to make a mess of your thing.’ He (said) ‘don’t worry about it, we’ve got a lot of makeup artists that are the best in Canada, so we’ll just cover them up and if you could, you play Benoit.’”
“I chomped at the bit. Benoit’s always been my idol when it comes to professional wrestling. Let’s just get that out of the way. When it comes to wrestling, Benoit’s always been my guy. He’s the guy I watched when I wanted to become a professional wrestler, he’s the one that I watched and said ‘yup, that’s exactly what I want to do.’ It was really easy to - it was an easy hire because they already know me. I know how it all works, I know how the script worked and all that stuff. It was supposed to be four days, it got cut to three days because I had to wrestle on the fourth day. So, they crammed my stuff all into three days over twelve hours a day of work to make the finished product, which turned out - I just watched the finished product along with family, so I was just blown away by how well it turned out.”
On his appearance on Kenny vs. Spenny:
“It’s funny how things work. My business is always worked through professional wrestling, and I’ve gotten roles and different kinds of opportunities in different kinds of markets, but it’s always been linked by somebody through professional wrestling. This time it was the Megan boys, the twins Jian and Page, who are great dudes out of Toronto. I’ve always gotten along really well with them. They said ‘hey, we really want to get you to be a part of this project,’ because they have - they get a lot of good business up in the Toronto areaway.”
“So, the first call they made was to me to be the trainer for Spenny. It was two days of probably - it was the oddest, the weirdest, and probably one of the most memorable moments. I don’t know if it was the most fun, I had a lot of fun though. It was a great time, let me tell you, working with both Kenny and Spenny on their show. I got free movies and popcorn for probably a year and a half after the fact because every student that was working at Cineplex knew who I was, and it was just so easy to get in for free so that was quite a bonus for me.”
Representing Canada in the Cruiserweight Classic, TNA and more:
“I haven’t even put much thought, seriously. When you mentioned it is the first time I put two and two together. Like, I’ve done Impact as Team Canada or TNA as Team Canada, the Cruiserweight Classic I was the Canadian representative, for the WhatCulture tournament I was also Canada trying to get into the finals there. It’s a little overwhelming sometimes if I sit back and I do think about it because there are a lot of moments and there has been a lot of opportunities where I’ve gotten to represent and hopefully I’ve represented well.
Follow the Network!
Tyson Dux
Twitter: @TysonDux
Facebook: Tyson Dux Wrestling Factory
The WCSN
Twitter: @WCSportsCA
Facebook: TheWCSNca
Instagram: @TheWCSNca
Patreon: TheWCSN
Spencer Love:
Twitter: @SpennyLove_WCS
Instagram: @SpennyandtheJetss
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