Dreamer Gets Candid About his WWE Tenure, Cody Doesn’t Want to Compete With the WWE and More!

According to The Wrestling Observer, the WWE is looking at signing Dalton Castle.  Castle became a world champion in Ring of Honor, but his match quality was never at the level of other champions.  That may be due to some nagging injuries he’s been dealing with this year.  Castle was a ROH World Heavyweight this year and World Six Man Tag Team Champion last year.   Castle may be under contract with ROH still, so it’ll be curious to see what happens with this.

 

Sports Illustrated interviewed John Cena and while the interview itself isn’t that noteworthy, it did highlight how Cena views his status in the company.  Cean, who is returning to the WWE to do a round of house shows (but no t.v. appearances) replied to a question about this “definite twilight” of his WWE career, saying;

It’s a giant relay race, and I’m in the phase where I’m handing the stick off. My time is up.  Someone else’s time is now.

 

WWE’s ratings are in the toilet and despite all the pundits seemingly putting fans at ease, the WWE knows they’re in trouble.  Advertisers aren’t going to pay a premium for a poorly rated show.  So it’s no surprise the WWE just tweeted out that Vince McMahon is returning to RAW to “shake things up”.

 

Cody Rhodes spoke to Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated and commented on how he had no intention on working on the NJPW/ROH supercard at Madison Square Garden in New York.  It’s not his career intentions that caught my eye, but the why.  Rhodes apparently doesn’t want to go up against the WWE anymore, saying;

I have a massive amount of respect for Joe Koff and [GM] Greg Gilleland. My exclusivity with Ring of Honor ended a while back and they’ve maintained everything on a handshake deal. I think Greg is a revolutionary in how he allows talent to play with without overproducing. But I can’t imagine me being on that particular show. After two ‘supercards’ and breaking my back essentially against Kenny last year, it still can’t change the fact that people are in town for WWE.

ROH and NJPW sold that building out and that is massive and special and I love that they did it, but had they did it on another weekend, I’d be more likely to be featured on it. After 10 years with WWE doing ’Mania weekend and two more with ROH, I am leaving that weekend for the boys and girls of the WWE.

 

Congrats to Christian,aka Jay Reso who just announced on Twitter that he’ll be hosting a new show on the History channel.  Reso will host a show called Knight Fight, which is apparently a show where dudes dress up in suits of armor and kick the shit out of them.  Weird man.  Weird.

 

Tommy Dreamer sat down with Robbie E for Robbie E’s Why it Ended with Robbie E podcast.  The thing that was most eye opening was how Dreamer saw his time in the WWE when he was forced to retire in his prime.   When asked if he enjoyed working backstage during his forced retirement, Dreamer said;

I don’t think a lot of people realize that I was 29 years old when ECW went out of business and I had given my twenties to ECW and now I’m in my thirties and they’re telling me they want me to pretty much retire and work in the office. I was not happy with that position, but my wife, at the time, was pregnant with our twins and there was no wrestling going on other places, so it was either take a job or you’re going to be unemployed. The cool thing about that and I learned a lot from my time in the office and I learned the politics. I learned a lot from Vince [McMahon] and I learned a lot from John Laurinaitis, almost how to play the game even though I don’t like it, but I did and it actually helped me for my second run in the company. I got to see two sides to every story because jerk wrestlers….are always like, ‘It’s the office against me. It’s always us vs them,’ when it’s not always that case because no one wants to look in the mirror and say, ‘Maybe it’s me. Should I be champion? I should be heavyweight champion,’ but then you think about it, how can you be heavyweight champion when they chant for another company called ECW? Or how could you be a champion when you wear a tee-shirt and the boss likes muscular guys? No one wants to say those things. People just want to blame other people for their lack of a push. That’s why I did a lot of soul searching and a lot of learning. I also found out that WWE wanted me in the office from day one.
Dreamer went on to explain why he didn’t want to work with Stephanie McMahon, saying;
For me to have perfect nirvana – I actually had it for two months, maybe three months – where I was in charge of it all. I was gonna be in charge of it creatively. I was gonna be in charge of it like I kinda was in the original ECW. Then it slowly started morphing into WWE, more and more product, so I kinda started backing away. Then I was given the opportunity, ‘You’re gonna be a full-time wrestler, but you’re still gonna work in the office. Who do you want to work for? Do you want to work for John Laurinaitis or do you want to be in creative with Stephanie [McMahon] as your boss telling you what to do about ECW?’ Of course I’m gonna stick with the person I know as opposed to the person I don’t know. Not that I don’t know Stephanie, but I didn’t work for her and also, you telling me how to run ECW or anyone telling me to run now House of Hardcore would be very very difficult for me to swallow that pill because I have a mouth and an opinion and I don’t play the political game, so that’s why I wasn’t a part of that.
The thing that most piqued my interest though was his take on WWE politics and the revelation that Dreamer was supposed to have a far more impressive tenure in the WWE, saying;
There was very little politics in ECW. Political games hit the moment you get there in WWE and of course you want to succeed and why you want to succeed is money. Would I love to be champion? Yeah, but it didn’t happen. There was a few pushes on the table. I was supposed to do 2-3 pay-per-views with Triple H and that did not pan out. I was supposed to be, at one point, tag team champions with Rob Van Dam and that didn’t pan out. It was not in the cards and you know why? Because wrestling is fake and you’re only as good as somebody wants you to be, so it’s OK. I have no regrets on anything that I did and that’s why my career has not ended and I will wrestle 206 shows this year.