Interview de Gunner au RCWR Show!

Deux sites proposent des résumés assez conséquents. Je vous les poste et ne promets cependant pas de les traduire. 

Voici le résumé proposé par TNAsylum, le rédacteur étant JSO: 

Lee Sanders of The RCWR Show interviewed Gunner ahead of this Thursday's Genesis event on Spike TV. Below are the highlights:

It seems like TNA is going in a new direction as far as the push of younger talent goes. As some would say, it was dominated by veterans with little spotlight on new talent. What’s your take when you hear that?
"Well, you know, I think it’s going to be a good change. You still have the Kurt Angles and the Jeff Hardys and veterans that, I think, are in the position to help out the younger guys like myself and not only learn more, but see if I can handle the pressure of being in that main event spot. I think it’s a good change because TNA has always been that company since day one with the younger guys, like AJ Styles and Chris Daniels and all these guys. TNA has always been about different, new, and young talent. For a while there, it kind of got away from that.

I mean, I’m 32-years-old and, obviously, I want to be the next superstar of Impact Wrestling and you can only do so much until they give you that platform to perform on. So, with 2014 being a new year, they are looking for the new face of the company. There have been a lot of changes, but I think the new face of the company is something different and something that the fans can latch on to. The fans want to see different stuff. They don’t want to see the same guys year in and year out doing the same stuff all the time. WWE always has new, fresh guys coming in and changing the product and I think that Dixie and the company in general are going to give us younger guys an opportunity to really stand out and see what we can do."


To the fan who has been with the product for so many years and who may have concerns about the future of the company, what would you say to them?
"I think that, obviously, going on the road was a big jump for a younger company. You know, I talked to Earl Hebner a lot about the early days in WWF when he started and the venues that they would run and events would run smaller places also. He didn’t jump right into these big arenas unless he was running the big syndicated TV program or big event or something like that. I think that TNA, being 11 years old, is really a baby company right now as far as that aspect goes. I think that us running smaller venues is a good thing because we can fill these really small venues. By bringing the crowd into smaller venues, they seem like they want to be a part of the show. When we were on the road, the arenas were hit or miss and the Orlando thing was always wide open. The place was usually packed.

I think that in the future, we have Genesis that’s going to be in Huntsville, Alabama. So, it’s an added arena. We’re doing spot TV's, I know, throughout the year of 2014 and on the road. So, some are going to be in Orlando and some are going to be on the road. That way it is saving money and not so much money is forked out. We’re doing a series of TV tours in the U.K. which is always great because we’re like rockstars over there. Who you are and what you do – they give it their all. I think that 2014 is going to be a different year for us, as far as not being on the road as much, but I don’t think we have to worry about the company going out of business or anything. There are a lot of changes being made right now and to make sure that, you know, Impact Wrestling stays afloat. We have the diehard fans and we have the Spike TV deal and we just signed a new U.K. TV deal. So, stuff like that is looking good for us."


Where do you see yourself in 2014 and let’s go further than that and say in the next three years from now in the company?
"I think 2014 is going to be my year. I know I’ve put it out there a bit, but I really feel that, not only my fan base and my peers, but even the company is finally getting behind the fact that I’m going to give them all I can give them and they want to actually give me a bit of an opportunity which I’m thankful for. Like I said, I’m 32-years-old, I’m still young, and I would love to win the World Heavyweight Title in 2014. If I’m ready for it, then so be it, and I’ve been working towards it. My goal is to be the TNA champion and be respected in the locker room as one of those guys who works hard whether we have a small crowd or a big crowd. That’s my main goal for 2014. It’s cool to hear that my peers and the fans are really, I think, expecting me and I’ve always really been about not letting people down.

You know, ever since I was a kid in school and in boot camp, I never wanted to let myself down, but I didn’t want to let my peers down or, you know, my higher-ups down either. So, that’s the main thing. I always try to work hard and give 110% no matter what. In the next three years, I definitely see myself as the heavyweight champion. I think that as long as my health and my career keep going the way it is and with me learning and getting the chance to work with a lot of these good guys like Bobby Roode, I think that it obviously speaks for itself. I have three years and a lot of time that I can put in and, really, I want to be the face of the company. I want to be that next AJ Styles. Obviously, I want to make my own mark as well."


What is your mindset going into your match with James Storm at Genesis?
"Really, my mindset is totally different going into this match than it has been for any match ever in my career, just because of what is on the line. I mean, it’s the World Heavyweight Title shot. I have my opportunity here to shine and to take this briefcase and cash it in and become the World Heavyweight Champion. James Storm’s tasted championship gold before. When it comes to the World Heavyweight Title, other than the Tag Team Titles, I’ve never had that shine yet and I am going to give it everything. I’ve been working harder in the gym than I usually work which is, to me, insane and some people say the same thing. I’ve been doing a lot more cardio. I’m also a firm believer in watching matches. I still watch stuff from the ‘80s and ‘90s and I’m just trying to learn and be better.

Going into this match, it’s definitely not a wrestling match anymore. I think it’s going to be more of a fight. He and I had a pretty good knockdown drag out a couple of weeks ago on Impact where it just ended in a double count out and we’re really at each other’s throat right now. We set our differences aside a little bit this weekend and did some tag matches, but when it comes down to it, he’s upset that I pretty much stepped over him to get the briefcase, but, in reality, he would have done the same exact thing. Here is a young guy – me – and here’s a guy who’s been in the company for a while – James Storm. We’re two guys who want the same thing and that’s the World Heavyweight Title shot. I’m just going to give it all and going to try and keep that briefcase because I definitely don’t want to lose that. If you lose that, you have to start over."


I’m sure a lot of TNA fans have noticed that good ol' Magnus, the undisputed TNA champion, doesn’t appear to have a match on this card. If you were to walk away with the briefcase, by chance, would you be looking to challenge the TNA champion later on that night for the title?
"I think that as a smart guy, I shouldn’t because, obviously, if he doesn’t have a match, he’s not going to be tired and worn out. However, I’ve never been known to be a smart guy. I’ve always been known to be a fighter. I joined the Marine Corps for one reason. That was because I wanted to be the best. All the military does the same thing, but in my mind, the Marines are the best. They’re the first in and the last out and, in my career, I try to keep it the same way.

I’m pretty silly sometimes, but I’m a fighter. I don’t like to back down from anything and I think that if I win the match with James, then it could be a huge possibility that I cash it in and call him out that night. Two times, I’ve called him out already and one night, he was supposedly across the pond having a party, and the next night, just the next week, he denied me my opportunity there. So, I’m a little irritated with him right now."


With the WWE Network, you are no longer paying $40 to $60 a pop for pay-per-view because you can get it for $10 a month. This basically means that one has more money to invest with other wrestling promotions. Do you feel that WWE has created a new opportunity for wrestling promotions collectively, including TNA, to be able to take control of the spotlight more, in presenting their content to a broader and newer audience?
"I think so, and it’s a conversation I had the other day. Unfortunately, when I was growing up, pay-per-views were the huge thing. Every month, my father was paying money for me to watch both WWF and WCW. Now, because of the internet and because of everything being free half the time, it is a dying business, I guess, when it comes to professional wrestling pay-per-views. It’s just like the music business where these musicians aren’t making a lot of money on music sales anymore. They’re making all their money on the road doing concerts because you can get on these pirate websites and everything is downloaded.

I think it’s going to be a good thing and it’s something that we started a little bit last year when we kind of cut our monthly pay-per-views down to just four big ones a year. Even Genesis was one of our big ones that was on pay-per-view and Dixie decided to do the televised show. So, I think that, yes, it’s going to open up a lot of doors to be something new for professional wrestling. I really truly believe that the pay-per-view business is dying and everyone’s getting smarter and going, 'Okay. Well, let’s just start doing this on TV or let’s do what WWE is doing with the network and charge a monthly fee,' or whatever they’re doing.

I think that’s a smart idea because people are going to pay that monthly fee and, on top of that, they’re getting unlimited access to professional wrestling. We have the TNA on demand kind of thing where, obviously, you can go back and watch old stuff from 2006 and on and on. So, it seems like everybody’s doing that now. It’s all about the packages instead of trying to do a monthly thing. It’s really costing a lot of money. So, I think it’s a good thing, in the end, for ratings and just for business.

YouTube’s a big thing now, man, and all this internet pay-per-view is the way to go. Before long, I think everything is going to be streamed live or however it’s done now. Cable companies are going to be different. I think everything is going to be off of apps. You have Netflix and I believe that, from what I get, that’s what the WWE Network is kind of going to be like. It’s going to be like a Netflix app that you can pay a monthly fee for. It’s something that TNA are probably jumping on board with pretty soon. I know that we’re doing a pay-per-view over in the U.K., but our ratings and stuff over in the U.K. are a lot different than they are in the U.S. and that’s the same for WWE. Everything is just kind of given away here."

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Résumé proposé sur TNAinsider, rédacteur Darren Grett:

TNAInsider Member Lee Sanders recently interviewed TNA Star Gunner for his RCWR Radio podcast . Gunner spoke candidly on a number of topics in the world of TNA including getting into the company, his former tag team partners, AJ Styles, his 2014 outlook and more. Below is a quick recap:

Crediting Terry Taylor and DLo Brown for getting him into TNA:

Yeah, you know, touching on Terry, Terry had come down to Anarchy a few times and a couple of other independent shows within the Carolinas and Georgia and he met me and really got my foot in the door with TNA. However, when it came to the actual dark matches, you know, Terry Taylor was gone.

D’Lo had also helped me out before the TNA days. I did have a lot of extra stuff for WWE back in ’08 and early ’09 before I signed with TNA and D’Lo helped me there, too. He’s still a good friend. He’s still a guy I keep in touch with. He and Murphy to [08:48] our first dark match and from there, it just obviously led to now.

I think D’Lo’s missed, not only just by me, but by a lot of the guys. We all got along with him and traveled with him. He did a lot of the live event house shows with us and I still keep in touch with him. He’s doing a lot of stuff in Japan. So, he’s staying busy, but he’s definitely greatly missed on my side.

On his former tag partner Murphy:

Oh, yeah, Murphy, a.k.a. Mikael Judas still wrestles down at the Anarchy building in Cornelia, Georgia. We had a history together. Really, since’06 when I first met him, after I got out of the Marine Corps and started wrestling with Georgia’s NWA Anarchy at the time, we’ve had a long feud against each other and did some tags with each other, but then, you know, both of us started the security gig with TNA. Terry got us both in the door.

I actually saw Judas – Murphy – a couple of weeks ago. I went down there and did some stuff with A.J. Styles for one of Anarchy’s big shows and we keep in touch probably once every week or so. We’re talking and he’s doing well. He runs his own fitness center and he still does independent shows.

So, he’s staying busy as always. I always say he had something great to fall back on because he went to school for nutrition and personal training. So, you know, he’s a very smart person when it comes to that stuff.

On being a part of the Immortal Faction:

You know, I think it just kind of fell in our lap. We were doing the security deal and then they teamed me and Murphy up to start, obviously, being a tag team. It didn’t last long. I guess we were tag teamed a couple of months, really. We did some house shows together and then I got the TV title, but from there, they put us in the Immortal faction. I think was really just to kind of get our foot in the door maybe and get seen by the fans and go, “Okay. Hey, these guys are important.”

It was a good way to start building us as characters, I believe, and we kind of just got thrown in the mix and it was one of those things where I’ve always gotten along with Eric Bischoff and Hulk and they enjoyed my work, which is great. It was one of those things where they needed muscle. So, there we were as kind of the bruisers for them and it went from there. I mean, I stayed with Immortal until they disbanded, really. When Murphy left, I was still kind of the single guy for them and did the little feud with Garett Bischoff and all that stuff.

It was really cool to work beside guys I grew up watching. For the fan side of me, it was really great to get input from Hulk Hogan and Bischoff and, you know, all those guys that were in the Immortal faction.

On first meeting some of the legends that were a part of TNA at the time:

You know, it’s funny you mention that because I was listening to a podcast with Jericho on it the other day and he talked about when he got to WCW and he was in the locker room with all these guys he grew up watching like Flair and Steamboat and Sting and everybody. It kind of made me realize how I felt when I first started there and was that fan or that mark-up moment of, “Oh, my God, I’m in the ring with Hulk Hogan,” and I was being managed by Ric Flair for a little while.

It was really cool, but then you have to set it to the side and I was like, “Okay, well, this is my job now,” and it was very surreal. However, at the same time, they were my peers and it was me trying to impress them and keep my job and let them know that I’m a workhorse and what I wanted to do was be the best. I was getting a lot of advice from Flair. We did a lot of live events together where, at the time, I was feuding with Garett.

So, you know, Flair was at my side. To be able to have a man like Ric Flair who is arguably one of the greatest ever who was always there to give me input was just really cool. It was really cool to be around.

It was really cool to be around Hulk and just talk to him about, you know, the good old days, I guess you could say, and he was, you know, giving me ideas on character and just working the crowd and whatnot – the insides of the business that a lot of people don’t know about or don’t learn in this day and time, I should say. A lot of people don’t take the time to teach the young guys like myself and it was a good opportunity for me.

On the decline of bigger guys in TNA:

No, you have me, Magnus, and Bobby Roode. Bobby Roode is considered a heavyweight. He’s a big guy. I don’t know, honestly. Obviously, TNA’s always been really big about the X Division and different styles and different aspects of wrestling and I think that wrestling is totally different now than it was when I was growing up in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Everybody was big. You never saw the smaller guys.

I don’t really think it puts any pressure on. It kind of definitely puts you in an elite category. You named Magnus and I there and yet you don’t see the big guys after Crimson and Matt Morgan and those guys left. I don’t really think that it puts any pressure on. I think you just go out there.

It gives me an opportunity, which I’ve always enjoyed even in the independents when I was at Anarchy, to wrestle with different styles of wrestlers. You have all have all scenarios of people who can do anything. I mean, he’s great. You have Bobby Roode who wrestles in a different style. You have Chris Sabin and it gives us, as big guys, an opportunity to be very diverse in what we do and, I think, better ourselves. Learning different styles is something I’ve always tried to pride myself on, whether or not it's high-flying.

Of course, I’m not going to come off the top rope unless maybe it’s with an elbow drop, but it’s good to know those different styles are at work, like a Japanese style or a Lucha style or a Big Man style. The wrestling business is totally different now than it was, say, in the ‘90s when two big guys were just duking it out. I think it’s really a good opportunity for all of us to just step up our game.

On Impact returning to a more permanent venue:

Yeah. I think that, obviously, going on the road was a big jump for a younger company. You know, I talked to Earl Hebner a lot about, you know, the early days in WWF when he started and the venues that they would run and events would run smaller places also. He didn’t jump right into these big arenas unless he was running the big syndicated TV program or big event or something like that. I think that TNA, being 11 years old, is really a baby company right now, as far as that aspect goes.

I think that us running smaller venues is a good thing because we can fill these really small venues. By bringing the crowd into smaller venues, they seem like they want to be a part of the show. When we were on the road, the arenas were hit or miss and the Orlando thing was always wide open. The place was always usually packed.

I think that in the future, we have Genesis that’s going to be in Huntsville, Alabama. So, it’s an added arena. We’re doing spot TV's, I know, throughout the year of 2014 and on the road. So, some are going to be in Orlando and some are going to be on the road. That way it is saving money and not so much money is forked out. We’re doing a series of TV tours in the U.K. which is always great because we’re like rockstars over there. Who you are and what you do – they give it their all.

I think that 2014 is going to be a different year for us, as far as not being on the road as much goes, but I don’t think we have to worry about the company going out of business or anything. There are a lot of changes being made right now for that and to make sure that, you know, Impact Wrestling stays afloat. We have the diehard fans and we have the SPIKE TV deal and we just signed a new U.K. TV deal. So, stuff like that is looking good for us.

On TNA in negotiations with SpikeTV:

I really haven’t heard much of anything. The last time I heard, we signed a three-year deal with them. I really don’t know what’s the inside scoop on a lot of that. There are so many rumors. I mean, obviously, the internet is fun to read sometimes regarding rumors on everything. So, really, I can’t answer that because I don’t know the exact details of the SPIKE TV stuff.

On the departure of AJ Styles:

to answer the question, I think the fans will eventually see A.J. Styles back. I mean, he was with them from day one when the doors first opened and he really is, in my opinion, the poster child or the golden child of Impact Wrestling. He’s a guy that I’ve been in the ring with and, honestly, he’s probably one of my favorite guys to work with and he’s a guy that, regardless of size, who you are, or how old you are, he can get in there and work around your weaknesses to make you look good. He’s just a guy that, I think, really needs to be there for younger guys like me to help build future stars.

On another note, when one door closes, another one opens for someone else and, I mean, that’s that professional wrestling business. The thing is that once that door closes on somebody, there’s always that opportunity for that next person to step up. That’s my goal. Since I was five-years-old, this has been what I’ve wanted to do. I didn’t want to do this to be rich. Obviously, I can pay my bills which is wonderful. I wanted to do this because I loved professional wrestling as a kid. I loved characters. I loved what they did and, you know, I still do to this day.

I’ve wanted to be the best ever since I was five. I didn’t want to just do it or be a mid-card guy. I wanted to be a main event guy. I wanted to be a champion.

Once that door closes on someone, like I said, another one opens for someone else and I really think that no one’s going to fill A.J. Styles’ boots and I never say I’m going to try and fill A.J. Styles’ boots, but I’m there to stand in my own and try to make my own legacy and the pressure’s on. It’s a good opportunity for a guy like me to be able to step up, if given the opportunity, and I think to shine.

Obviously, they’re big shoes to fill, man, and I think A.J. will be back eventually. I don’t know the timeframe, but he’s very valuable. He’s a very valuable individual and just well-respected in the locker room.

his professional outlook for 2014:

Yeah, I think 2014 is going to be my year. I know I’ve put it out there a bit, but I really feel that, not only my fan base and my peers, but even the company is finally getting behind the fact that I’m going to give them all I can give them and they want to actually give me a bit of an opportunity which I’m thankful for.

Like I said, I’m 32-years-old, I’m still young, and I would love to have the World Heavyweight title in 2014. If I’m ready for it, then so be it, and I’ve been working towards it. My goal is to be the TNA champion and be respected in the locker room as one of those guys who works hard whether we have a small crowd or a big crowd. That’s really my main goal for 2014.

It’s cool to hear that my peers and the fans are really, I think, expecting me and I’ve always really been about not letting people down. You know, ever since I was a kid in school and in boot camp, I never wanted to let myself down, but I didn’t want to let my peers down or, you know, my higher-ups down either. So, that’s the main thing. I always try to work hard and give 110% no matter what.

In the next three years, I definitely see myself as the heavyweight champion. I think that as long as my health and my career keep going the way it is and with me learning and getting the chance to work with a lot of these good guys like Bobby Roode, I think that it obviously speaks for itself. I have three years and a lot of time that I can put in and, really, I want to be the face of the company. I want to be that next A.J. Styles. Obviously, I want to make my own mark as well.