Interview With Former TNA & ROH Wrestler Nigel McGuinness

AS: In the past there's been MMA wrestlers like Ken Shamrock and Dan Severn making the jump to WWE, and even TNA was doing an MMA inspired act with Samoa Joe for a little bit. Do you think there's more that promoters can really tap into there? NM: 100%, but it has to be a categorical change across the board. That's the issue. We've seen in pro wrestling building up big title matches and someone losing in like 5 or 6 minutes to show people "Oh, things can happen" not knowing that a match has to go a certain amount of time. Because it happens so infrequently, people don't really change their view point of when things will happen. Same thing with the in-ring style. You have to have guys that can work that style. Therefore if you put in a guy who works that style with a guy that doesn't know how to, 9 times out of 10 it just doesn't get over. Say that match with Joe and (Kurt) Angle that they used an MMA influence, instead of going in that direction they just went back to beforehand, and it kind of burnt out when they had the opportunity to do something different. AS: Are these guys going to be fighting for a belt? NM: No. Essentially it's a round-robin tournament and every season these guys get together in this fight club. Imagine like a small independent show, except that the matches are real, at least within the universe obviously. We're not presenting it as some people think reality shows like pro wrestling should be. So they are fighting for a prize. $10,000 that the winner will get. Otherwise they believe in the company much like the same way that people believe in the independent companies. They're doing something new and interesting and different. Individually they're sort of clinging onto that sort of fame they had, to various extent like pro wrestlers. A lot of the guys were pro wrestlers and are now getting into MMA because it's the hot thing to do. There will also be some guys whose characters are MMA fighters, and perhaps there'll be some conflict between the guys who think that pro wrestling is fake, and they kind of hate that, and the guys that were pro wrestlers. AS: I saw you mention that these wrestlers are going to have to transition, and maybe moves they were used to may not work now, like a dropkick. Will we not be seeing a lot of traditional wrestling moves like a finishing move? NM: It will be less. It will be more realistic. The thing is, because a lot of these guys are pro wrestlers, and they're told as well that the most important thing is that these matches are entertaining. So don't go out there and try to win, because if your match is boring you're not going to get used there next season. So they're aware of that, and they're all aware of going out there and performing and entertaining as well. So people may hit the ropes and throw a dropkick, but the most important thing is that the people don't react to it in a way that is unrealistic. When someone throws a dropkick and the guy falls flat on his back, even if it barely misses him, it's completely fake. And we see this again and again in pro wrestling. It worked 15 or 20 years ago, before we knew what a real fight looked like, because we'd suspend our disbelief. Now we can't. And that's my reality. People may try the top rope, but as long as somebody doesn't stand there, like a deer in the headlights when a guy jumps and lands on top of him, it will work. That's something I'm going to try and do with the in-ring style. AS: At times people have compared LA Fights to Wrestling Retribution Project (a Kickstarter wrestling company that was funded and inexplicably never aired), but my question with that is that their concept was a guy like MVP who was coming in was going to be a completely different character. So for example if you use Jimmy Jacobs, would he still be Jimmy Jacobs? Or is he a different character? NG: We change his name I would imagine, probably for the sake that it is a different universe. Essentially he'd be playing himself. All the complexities he'd have on the show, he'd have in the real world as well. That's part of my theory, is that as wrestlers we're not actors and therefore what we can do is play ourselves turned up to 10 and that's fine, because we all have complexes in real life and are engaging and we'll get people into the characters. They're not going to have specific names like that. It really is a step away from traditional wrestling in that regard. They're not going to have gimmicks, just people playing themselves. We're letting the backstories tell the stories themselves. AS: Do you have an ultimate goal in mind. Say the six episodes go through, and it's successful. Do you know how many episodes you would do in a season after that? NM: I would imagine more. It really depends on what happens after that. This is the reality of what I'm facing. I could take this idea, this concept and I could try and go to production companies and I could try to get this funded. But I would lose a lot of creative control, and at that point it no longer continues to be my vision, and all modesty aside, I've worked very hard to make sure that everything I've learned within pro wrestling pays off here. And I think if you don't have that background in pro wrestling, it is difficult to really understand why this product needs to be the way it is. I've seen products in the past like the ECW reboot where it was on the horror channel, whatever it was, and they had to have vampires and werewolves. We've seen it time and time again and it will almost certainly happen. If this gets funded through Kickstarter, I will have carte blanche to make this project exactly as it needs to be. That's what we're facing here. If I don't get this funded this way, then arguably it will never see the light of day as it is now. I can try and make it the same way. But If I take it to people they may say "I like the idea, but I want this and this different" and fair enough, and if that's the only option open to me that's what I'll do. But I don't believe that will have the same profound effect on the industry as this will. I hear people saying time and time again on a Monday night "Oh I can't stand this anymore!" And listen, I'm telling you WWE isn't changing. They have a demographic. They sell out arenas all over the world. They're not going into the f---ing poor house anytime soon. They're not changing it, so bitch and complain all you want. Fair enough. But if you want to see something new, if you really want to see a new product that can be stood up alongside the same shows that everyone raves about on social media, this is an opportunity to do it 100%. AS: WWE is often insulting to our intelligence. NG: It's a different audience now, that's the reality. You can look at shows like€”is it Happy Days with The Fonz, right? AS: Yeah, that's Happy Days. NG: Or any of those sort of shows that as a kid you loved, and now you watch it and go "Oh nostalgia" and you can still watch WWE from the 90s, same thing. No one watches these shows for the rest of their lives, and I think that's the reality that people sometimes fail to grasp is that WWE won. They realize what their demographic was. Their best demographic for moving forward and they stuck with it. That demographic, they buy it. They buy John Cena t-shirts and they buy the pay-per-views, not as many as they used to of course, because now people can steal them for free, and that's whole new big issue. But nonetheless, WWE has their audience, and if you don't like their product, hey, I've got a product that you will f---ing love, but listen, it ain't going to happen if no one supports it. AS: You said if the show is funded, you'll consider wrestling again. Are you excited about that prospect? NG: I'm kind of on the fence. Part of me saying I was going to be on the show was to try and create some buzz, and all the people who say they want to see me wrestle again would get more than just an evolutionary, entertaining TV show. It involves someone they want to see wrestling again. So if it gets funded would I continue to still be a part of it? Less likely. I love being healthy I love not having to worry about getting kicked in the face or any of those things. Now the in-ring style is an evolution to where it's far less bump heavy, but I may even go so far as saying there'll be no bumps, because in real, professional fights you don't see any bumps. You know, which is to me, I think the number of times that people get hit and fall flat on their back is disingenuous, and I think it's not really realistic in the known world. But there again, its just my theory. It's my viewpoint, it's what I think a new product could be. Other people may disagree and that's certainly up to them, and that's their choice. It all comes back to me trying to do something rather than just talking about it. AS: You talked about more mature themes, and you talked about sexuality, I would say a lot of people are out there looking for something more mature than Billy and Chuck and Lenny and Lodi. NM: Sure. Of course they are. 100% they are. There's no doubt in my mind that if this is created, it will be huge and everyone will be satisfied and go "This is awesome and I love it and now I can do the same thing myself." Know what I mean? I really think it will be a huge inspiration to people. Someone said to me when I was talking to them about the project beforehand, "If you had $370,000 in your bank, and that was all you had, and your future financial success depended on it, would you put your money into this project? Because if you wouldn't, I don't think you can really put it out there and ask other people to commit." And I said "Absolutely." Because if I put 370 in, I know I can sell this for a million. I have that much faith in it. Imagine if people were on the ground level of ECW, what sort of pride they would have had in terms of doing something different. They'd revolutionize an industry. This is an opportunity for that to happen.

AS: Who was it that originally brought you into TNA? Was it Vince Russo? NM: Dixie liked me. She came to a couple of Ring of Honor shows and was interested, but I was under contract at the time. So it wasn't until my contract ran out and I was offered the deal by WWE that they expressed interest again, but that didn't work out. Thank God. Then Terry Taylor called me and offered me the deal. AS: Dixie was at an ROH show? NM: Yeah, she came to a show in Boston. A couple of times actually. AS: Why'd you change your hair when you went to TNA? NM: I changed before I left actually. I was injured, and I shaved it all off, because I wanted a new, more serious look. And it was a hassle dealing with it in the off-season when I wasn't wrestling. I looked like a horrible, homeless, hippie at points. It was just easier to handle it, and now I've got a new style as well. AS: Fortune became a pretty bloated and confusing stable, what maybe three other guys besides yourself would you have put in there? NM: (Laughs) I liked the other guys that were involved. I always felt that if it could have been guys that had success on the independents. So A.J. (Styles), Joe (Samoa), Chris Daniels, Low Ki, although he wasn't there at the time specifically. Guys of that ilk that fans could get behind and go "These are kind of like the outsiders." They haven't just been thrown together in yet another f---ing reworking of the Four Horsemen. F--k. How often do we see in pro wrestling on a mainstream level just regurgitating the same thing again? It worked with these guys and it will never work again. You have to reinvent. You can't just replicate. You have to innovate and that's the danger. And that's the difficulty, certainly when there's so many people involved as well, because it's not just one person who's writing the show. No matter how much heat Russo gets and/or deserves, for whatever he's done, most of what he did had to go through other people. Other people should be on the chopping block as well, and that's the reality, and kind of the interesting thing is there are so many people that had a hand in the demise of WCW, and a lot of the nonsense that has happened in TNA throughout the years, and (laughs) they continue to make money in pro wrestling. Ad nauseum. There you go, that's the reality of it. To a certain extent it's still - not an old boy's network, but once you have a certain resume, then people continue to use you. It's not like in movies where if you have a couple of flops then no one's going to touch you again. That's just not the way it is in pro wrestling, because there's so few jobs and so few people that have successes on their resume. Once you have a little bit of success, then you can really use that for the rest of your career. AS: Is there anybody, former wrestler or current wrestler, that might make a decent booker? NM: Hundreds. Hundreds. I mean Jimmy Jacobs, that's why I brought him on as a script consultant for this. I think he's a genius. I think he's really smart. I think Delirious is doing a fantastic job keeping everything logical and moving forward in Ring of Honor. I think Chris Daniels is extremely intelligent as well. He's got a lot of bright ideas, and the list goes on. I think that's what makes great wrestlers is having the right mind to put matches together as well. There's a ton of guys. AS: Besides yourself, who do you think TNA dropped the ball on the most? NM: (Laughs) We haven't got time. Unfortunately, unless things turn around, to a large extent TNA could be looked at as the graveyard for many people's careers. Essentially it was for me and my career, and while it was the highest of highs with my matches against Kurt Angle became the lowest of lows with some of the nonsense I did afterwards and some of the ways I was booked. As I said I'm certainly not the only person in that regard, you know. In my mind, Joe should have been the next big breakout star in the industry. He was trained in Japan originally, and he mentored over there. He could have easily played that same role if the right things had been done, but they were just never done. Never ever done, and it just goes on and on and on. Even guys that had a fantastic name elsewhere, they just haven't been able to capitalize on. I don't know if I have all the answers, I really don't. Were I in their position could I have done a better job? Uh, yes, as long as I had carte blanche to do what I want. No, if everything I tried to suggest had to go through A, B, C, and D before it came back to me and went out. I don't think you can point at any one specific person and say "That's the issue." There were a lot of people involved, and I wasn't privy to how the booking process worked really. That's a question for Vince Russo. All I know is the outcome, and the outcome is that after 10 or 15 years of millions of dollars, and some of the best talent in the professional wrestling industry going through the place, still barely a blip on the radar in terms of mainstream professional wrestling. AS: That's depressing to think about. NM: That's a shame. And I love the guys there. I think British Bootcamp is awesome, and seeing some of the guys over on that level, but to have that sort of money and have that sort of backing, and Spike TV and national TV channel, you've got an opportunity. And yeah, they did, they tried different things, absolutely they tried different things and it is always easy to point and say "They f----d up and they didn't do this, and they didn't do that." It's not so easy to say "This is exactly what they should have done." And not that it's exactly the same thing, but that is what I'm trying to do with L.A. Fights. Instead of talking negatively and saying people aren't doing this or aren't doing that, I'm not really interested really in what anybody else is doing wrong, because it's not about that. What it is, is about showing what is positive and what can be done correctly and engagingly and to create a product that everybody will love. AS: Your documentary is a mix of inspiration, and at times kind of depressing. Something that stuck out to me was your last match (it looked like there was maybe 100 people in the audience). Was there any thought of saving that last match for ROH or just a bigger show? NM: We talked about it. At the time there wasn't enough time to build it up. I started back in Ring of Honor in September as the announcer and they already had a lot of plans in place for that Final Battle that year, so to really bring me back and build me up for that one final match it just wasn't enough time. I didn't want to throw away the match in that regard. And I kind of really did feel as well that I'd had my last match in Ring of Honor. I don't want to be one of those guys that say "I'm retiring, and this is my last match here" and then coming back and coming back and coming back. It's up to them if someone wants to do that. Fair enough. And if there's paydays involved then fair enough as well. I get it. For me, I closed that chapter in my life and perhaps it was fitting when I had my final match on that show there in West Virginia. AS: Growing up, or on the outside of things, what was your least favorite angle ever in any promotion as a fan? NM: I don't really remember. I was such a big fan I kind of loved everything. I remember not liking the Warlord's matches, a lot of those sort of big guys. I don't really know why I didn't like them. I wouldn't have dared to say that they were boring or "F--k these guys," because I was just such a big fan of pro wrestling that if anybody was a pro wrestler they were like a god to me. AS: What are some of your biggest pet peeves from a storyline standpoint in the current companies? NM: I can't really talk about it because I don't watch. All I hear is what people talk about online and again. We live in a world where people don't do their homework and they complain about things that they really don't know that much about. Whether it was issues with the police, and race issues here in America, or religion or what anybody has said, very few people really look beyond just the sound bite and then they just start flapping their mouth and start saying "This is awful" and whatever else. And I think it's disingenuous. I think it's dangerous. I think the obligation that we have as intelligent human beings is to do the research. You can find out more information on Nigel and LA Fights on LAfights.com, on Twitter @McGuinessNigel and kickstarter.com/projects/nigelmcguinness/la-fights