AL SNOW
- Our fourth interview with Al Snow at the Epicenter
begins with him jokingly voicing his distaste for our choice in sound effects
for the intro
- He plugs his appearance on Francine’s “Legends
of the Arena” event which will reunite the stars of the original ECW
while also raising money for the American Cancer Society. Snow talks about
what a great cause this is and talks about how close it hits home for him
since he lost both his sister & his father to cancer.
- He also says that it will get to be a treat to go back
to the original ECW Arena & reunite with a lot of the guys he worked
with back then.. He really hopes that the ECW Faithful comes out in support
and the show is a success.
- What makes the ECW Arena so special to Al is that it
was the home of a unique product that had a passionate fan base that was
dedicated to a bunch of hard workers and eventually built ECW up to being
one of the largest wrestling promotions in the world.
- When asked if the spirit of ECW can be duplicated,
he thinks it can be and its just a matter of finding something big to promote
and to give the fans something to be excited about. He specifically mentions
examples from the territory days (The Von Erich family for example) that
gives the fans something to be excited about.
- He is asked his opinions on TNA Wrestling, and Al admits
that he’s not a part of the company and doesn’t watch regularly,
so he can’t really make an educated opinion on the quality of the product.
When asked about his one night with the company, he did expect to be used
again at least on the TV tapings, but after a few short meetings they
didn’t have any plans for him and he hasn’t been contacted for
a few months. He isn’t sure what happened & just assumes they
didn’t have plans for him. He has no problems with TNA and he hopes
they succeed.
- Al then talks about the ECW influence on wrestling
today and says that it has had its bad & good effects on wrestling and
you can see the effects today.
- When asked about the WWE’s version of ECW, he
says that its Vince McMahon’s vision, not Paul Heyman’s. He mentions
how the territories all felt different because they were all run by different
people, and Vince is only presenting the product the way he normally does
to appeal to as large an audience as possible.
- Our second guest on the show was Nova, and Snow talks
about a lot of the ribs that they used to pull on each other. He says that
eventually they stopped because Snow was scaring Nova’s parents and
Nova scared Snow’s wife at the time. He talks about one incident where
his wife got a call about Al appearing on the Jerry Springer Show.
- Questions from the forums come in and ask about Pepper
& Pierre the Deer Head. He says that a lot of people still remember Pepper
the Dog. He jokingly admits that Pepper didn’t taste very good. He also
says that he really liked Pierre.
- He is also asked about the Euro Title reign where he
would dress up to represent a different European country every time he came
out. He says that he felt like it was silly, but decided to go all the way
with the goofiness and is surprised at how many people remember it
fondly.
- Erik calls into the show and asks Al about his short
feud with The Rock. Al says that he really enjoyed the feud and puts Rock
over as a great guy. He says it probably would have gone on longer but Al
admits a mistake he made where Rock entered the Royal Rumble and Al ignored
him instead of attacking him. He looks back on it now and says it was a bad
mistake and it cut the feud short.
- He has other projects outside of wrestling at this
time and he specifically mentions a horror movie involving Midget Vampires
called “Ankle-Biters”
- Next, the interview takes a philosophical turn as the
hosts begin to ask Al about the psychology of professional wrestling. The
first topic is Tag Team Wrestling, and Al says a big problem with it today
is that a lot of guys work it as “Two Singles Matches” and the
guys only take turns to do spots rather than working together as a cohesive
unit to get over the importance of teamwork & tagging in and out.
- Al then gets into a great discussion about the psychology
of winning & losing and how all matches should be worked as two guys
trying to win a match, not two guys trying to beat each other up. He makes
up the example of a “Dildo on a Pole Match” where the object is
to climb up the pole, grab the dildo, then use it as a weapon. Al says that
the second the bell rings, both guys should try to get up the pole, but what
tends to happen nowadays is that you’ll see the guys wrestle for a long
time before trying to get up the pole, which takes away from the point of
the match. In a regular match, the win is obtained on the mat and the object
should be to try and take your opponent down to the mat and keep him down
for the win.
- He says that when wrestlers put a match together, the
only limitations are in their own creativity and imagination, but unfortunately
a lot of the matches come off looking the same. Erik brings up the point
about wrestlers believing that they need to follow a set of rules &
traditions, and Al Snow agrees. This also leads into a discussion of building
up heat for heels & the reasons for picking the right times for guys
to win or lose and he says that those decisions need to be made as if looking
from the perspective of the fans.
- Snow then says that the only thing that is fake about
wrestling is the ending, who wins & who loses. The point is to make the
fans believe that it is important for guys to win or lose. He once again
states that today it is more about beating each other up, and as a result,
nothing has consequences.
- When talking about making big bumps matter (specific
example of John Cena coming back the next night after getting slammed through
a Spotlight) He says that WWE is probably worried about taking a top star
off of TV for an extended amount of time, but he feels that it would probably
build more drama for the show if they were to have those big bumps
matter.
- Al Snow talks about how Wrestling Critics have impacted
wrestling by making the wrestlers think about trying to put on the best match
rather than working to put on a show that sells the most tickets. He
doesn’t have a problem with fans critiquing, but feels that too many
wrestlers think too much of what they think rather than trying to do things
the right way. Al then tells a story about an experience he had at an Indy
show where a majority of the wrestlers were concerned about pleasing a critic
who posts on the internet in attendance named Jeffie. Al later found out
that Jeffie was a 13 year old boy.
- Snow says that this mindset with wrestlers started
with Wrestlemania III mainly because of the differences between Hogan vs.
Andre & Steamboat vs. Savage. Snow says that Savage/Steamboat was a great
match, but says that it was Hogan/Andre that filled the venue with 93,000
fans. And this leads into a discussion about how emotional attachment to
the match matters more than technical ability.
- Andres calls in and is then asked about the psychology
that goes into Japanese wrestling. He says its still about winning and losing,
but the difference between Japan & the States is that many Japanese fans
“played” judo, and we familiar with the mechanics of getting thrown
to the mat, having to tap out, and as such, they can relate more to the action
in the ring.
- Al Snow says that there will always be people that
say wrestling is fake, specifically mentioning the analogy that some people
use: the ring being like a trampoline, and says that there is no reason to
make people think the action is real if they already think the ring is fake.
He says that the true selling point of wrestling is the conflict and the
characters that are involved in it, which is similar to movies, plays, and
other art forms.
- On a final note, Al says that he loves professional
wrestling, saying that he was basically paid to be on vacation for his entire
career. We then get a final plug for the Legends of the Arena event where
Al will be facing his old rival Shane Douglas.
:: GO BACK TO THE HOME
PAGE
:: DISCUSS THIS POST
ON THE FORUMS!
:: BUY WRESTLING DVD'S
THROUGH OUR STORE!
Home |
News |
Editorials |
Interviews |
Forums |
Chat Room |
Store |
Divas |
PPV Results |
TV Results |
Shows |
Links
| Metal Epicenter |
Contact Us/Staff
Show: The Interactive Interview courtesy
of
