A former WWE star believes that they only knew how to wrestle after they left the company.
Entering the wrestling industry in a more unconventional manner in 2001, Maven was the winner of the first-ever Tough Enough competition.
Unable to pick up the valuable experience required from performing on independent shows and non-televised events beforehand, the former Hardcore Champion was placed in shorter matches during his time in WWE due to his lack of in-ring experience. More focused on time limits and hitting his cues instead of reacting to the crowd, the Tough Enough winner recently admitted that it wasn’t until the constraints were lifted that he felt like he could improve.
Appearing on The False Finish, Maven spoke about the pressure of the time limits in his matches and how there was no leeway:
“I didn’t really learn to wrestle until after my release. When you’re in the WWE, you’re wrestling to a time limit. You’re getting six minutes and that six minutes can very easily be cut down to five by the time you get out there. When you go out, every move, ‘Okay, I gotta take two punches, shoot off, duck a clothesline’ because you know they’re gonna go to a Chef Borardyee ad if I don’t finish this match. Every match was to a time limit.”
Continuing, Maven added that once he was able to have long matches on house shows with experienced wrestlers then things clicked into place, including learning to adapt to the crowd:
“Once I got out and once I got on the indies and once I started doing work with what was at the time UWF, which was kind of like TNA’s house shows, I had a promoter telling me, ‘Hey man, go out there, 15 to 20, I don’t care, just entertain them.’ I would work with guys like Billy Gunn and Rhino and we wouldn’t call stuff backstage.
I would work with Billy and he’d avoid me. I’d be like, ‘Billy, what are we doing?’ He’d be like, ‘Man, we’ll figure it out out there, listen to what they’re popping for.’ Once you learn how to do that, it’s so free. Every crowd is going to be different. You might have something planned and if the crowd is not popping for it, you better be able to turn it around and do something else. Once I was able to learn how to listen and how to do that, wrestling got so much easier.”
Will Former WWE Star Maven Return To The Ring
Although he has only competed sparingly in the years since his release, Maven has seen a resurgence in popularity in 2024 thanks to his YouTube channel, which gives a refreshingly honest insight into the professional wrestling world. During the same interview, the former WWE star was asked if he thinks one more match could be on the cards.
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H/t to Fightful.