Matt Morgan On Modern Wrestling vs. Attitude Era, Wade Barrett On Tackling Backstage Politics
On a recent edition of the “Stories with Brisco and Bradshaw” podcast, WWE and TNA alumnus Matt Morgan noted how well the professional wrestling industry is doing right now, although it’s nowhere near the heights of the Attitude Era.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On wrestling’s current boom period: “People talk about the boom of wrestling now, and it is, it’s doing great. WWE is doing amazing, obviously, but not the pop culture portion of it if you will, that it was then back then in the Attitude Era.”
On the popularity of wrestling in the Attitude Era: “I’m not joking, all the different athletes that were in the same dorm together, the dance team, our cheerleaders, girls, guys of all different makes and models all would pack together and would go back and forth between the two channels of watching the Monday Night Wars with a keg. They’d make a party out of it, it was that popular and it was that hot back in those late 90s there.”
On WWE 2K’s “Even Stronger Podcast,” Wade Barrett discussed how he would have handled backstage “political situations” differently early in his career with his current knowledge and experience.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On how he would have handled things differently now: “Well, it’s kind of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I’ll get it out of the way now. I wish I had the brain I have now on the young body and potential I had back then because I would have done things a little differently. I would have handled certain political situations differently, things that were completely beyond the realm of my comprehension in 2010. I wasn’t able to understand how the industry worked behind the scenes.
“The other side of that is the positive side where you’ve got to remember at that point in my career. I’d probably been training to be a wrestler for about seven years at that point. I’d been all over Europe at that point. Obviously, I’d come over to the US and been in the developmental systems in Ohio Valley Wrestling and Florida Championship Wrestling, getting paid very little and making big sacrifices to try and chase this dream.”
On his mindset at the time: “So, the really cool thing about the era that you see [in WWE 2K23] this young, fresh-faced Wade Barrett, that was the point where I knew that no matter what happened from there, all my sacrifices had been worth it. I’d made it to WWE, I’d made it to the pay-per-views, I’d made it to Raw and SmackDown, I was a focal point of the show in 2010. So, really, it felt like a big weight lifted off my shoulders that I wasn’t going to have to go back to the UK with my tail in between my legs, having failed to make it and having to go back to my regular old job and beg them for my job back. I think that would have haunted me for life. So, there was a massive feeling of achievement and relief that I got to that point in 2010, and this is the character you get to play with now on WWE 2K23.”
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